LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 

PRESENTED  BY 

Marie  B.    Wol ford 


Beto.  <8tovyt  ft.  (Sjnrtoon,  3D.  D. 


ULTIMATE  CONCEPTIONS  OF  FAITH.  Crown 
8vo,  gilt  top,  $1.30  net.  Postage  extra. 

THE  NEW  EPOCH  FOR  FAITH.  Crown  8vo,  gilt 
top,  $1.50. 

THE  WITNESS  TO  IMMORTALITY  IN  LITER- 
ATURE, PHILOSOPHY,  AND  LIFE.  Crown  8vo, 
gilt  top,  $1.50. 

THE  CHRIST  OF  TO-DAY.  Crown  8vo,  gilt  top, 
$1.50. 

IMMORTALITY  AND  THE  NEW  THEODICY. 
i6mo,  gilt  top,  $1.00. 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


ULTIMATE  CONCEPTIONS  OF 
FAITH 


ULTIMATE 

CONCEPTIONS    OF 

FAITH 


BY 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY 

;<Ct)c  ftitoerpifcr  pretf?, 
1903 


COPYRIGHT    1903    BY   GEORGE   A.   GORDON 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  October  igoj 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  BARBARA 


TO  THE  STUDENTS 

TO  WHOM  IT  WAS  MY  PRIVILEGE  TO  SPEAK 
AND  TO  THE  YOUNGER  MINISTRY 

WHOM  THEY  REPRESENT 
WHOSE  VOCATION  IT  WILL  BE 

IN  AN  AGE  OF  TRANSITION 
TO  FORM  THE  MIND  IN  CHRISTIAN  BELIEF 

AND  TO  SHAPE  THE  LIFE 

IN  CHRISTIAN  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

I  DEDICATE  THIS  BOOK 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  contains  the  lectures  delivered  in  the 
autumn  of  1902  in  Yale  University  on  the 
Lyman  Beecher  foundation.  The  first  and  third 
chapters  were  not  given  as  lectures,  but  they 
are  deemed  essential  to  the  course  of  thought ; 
and  of  the  remaining  chapters  only  about  two 
thirds  could  be  read  within  the  reasonable  limit 
of  time  prescribed.  While  the  book  was  origi- 
nally written  for  publication,  and  substantially 
as  it  stands,  it  owes  its  existence  wholly  to  the 
invitation  with  which  its  author  was  honored  as 
Lyman  Beecher  lecturer.  Although  nothing 
could  exceed  the  kindness  with  which  the  lec- 
tures were  received  both  by  the  students  and 
the  faculty  of  the  Divinity  School,  it  should  be 
said  that  upon  the  writer  alone  rests  the  re- 
sponsibility for  the  opinions  expressed  and  main- 
tained. 

A  great  tradition  of  power  has  descended  to 
the  Congregational  ministry  of  New  England, 
and  through  it  to  the  Christian  ministry  through- 
out the  country.  In  the  opinion  of  the  great 


Vlll  PREFACE 

representatives  of  this  service,  the  preacher  was 
not  a  mere  exhorter,  or  one  whose  duty  was  dis- 
charged by  reading  his  people  a  practical  lesson 
once  or  twice  a  week.  He  was  the  teacher  of 
the  people,  the  former  of  their  minds  in  Chris- 
tian belief,  the  thinker  who  covered  their  exist- 
ence with  the  power  of  a  consistent  thought 
of  the  universe.  The  character  both  of  the 
preacher  and  of  the  people  rose  up  out  of  the 
high  philosophy  which  they  together  held  con- 
cerning man  and  man's  world.  It  is  impossible 
to  measure  the  strength  and  the  solace  that 
came  to  the  heroic  generations  of  New  England 
men  and  women  from  the  ministry  that  con- 
trolled the  issues  of  the  heart  through  the  au- 
thority of  its  teaching  over  the  mind.  The 
freedom  of  living  under  occasional  and  vagrant 
insights  is  dearly  bought.  The  loss  to  life  in 
the  death  of  a  ruling  system  of  ideas  is  inex- 
pressible. When  the  controlling  scheme  dies 
before  its  successor  is  born,  all  wise  men  must 
mourn.  Chance  thoughts,  vagrant  insights,  may 
be  all  that  can  be  obtained  ;  but  this  is  our  sor- 
row, and  not  our  boast.  We  look  back  upon 
our  fathers,  and  behold  for  them  the  sweet 
heavens  built  into  unity  and  dominion  and 
power,  and  under  them  the  obedient,  awestruck, 
and  yet  hopeful  world  of  men.  We  revere  the 


PREFACE  IX 

faith  that  commanded  the  reason  while  it  ex- 
alted the  soul. 

The  American  pulpit  has  fallen,  not  upon  evil 
days,  but  upon  other  days.  The  teaching  that 
controlled  our  fathers  has  lost  its  authority. 
The  loss  has  been  inevitable.  That  teaching 
has  gone  into  comparison  with  the  whole  higher 
thought  of  the  world.  Phoenix-like  it  must  rise 
from  its  ashes;  for  in  it  are  the  "the  truths 
that  wake  to  perish  never."  That  old  teaching 
must  rise  out  of  the  higher  thought  of  the  world 
purified,  enriched,  matured,  no  longer  an  ideal- 
ism under  the  shadow  of  despair,  but  an  idealism 
warranted  by  the  best  reason  of  the  race,  veri- 
fied and  anointed  in  the  humanity  of  Christ  and 
in  the  heart  of  his  disciples.  For  those  who  are 
willing  to  tread  this  path,  and  to  give  themselves 
wholly  to  their  ministry,  the  vocation  of  the 
preacher  will  become,  more  and  more,  the  power 
that  forms  the  intellect  in  Christian  belief,  and 
that  shapes  the  life  in  Christian  righteousness. 

Another  tradition  of  worth  has  descended  to 
the  New  England  preacher.  The  representative 
preachers  in  former  times  were  accustomed  to 
publish  their  systems  of  reasoned  belief,  that 
they  might  influence  more  widely  the  Christian 
community,  and  that  they  might  acquaint  their 
brethren  in  the  ministry  with  their  position  in 


X  PREFACE 

the  great  world  of  faith.  It  is  an  easy,  an  alto- 
gether too  easy  triumph  over  these  thinkers  to 
quote  against  them  Tennyson's  famous  lines :  — 

"  Oar  little  systems  have  their  day ; 
They  have  their  day  and  cease  to  be." 

It  is  unjust  thus  to  serve  them  while  we  reserve 
for  others  a  different  fate.  There  is  but  one 
sentence  for  all  things  human,  executed  in  one 
case  sooner,  in  another  later.  Let  Tennyson 
broaden  the  special  judgment  into  the  uni- 
versal :  — 

"  We  pass ;  the  path  that  each  man  trod 
Is  dim,  or  will  be  dim,  with  weeds : 
What  fame  is  left  for  human  deeds 
In  endless  age  ?     It  rests  with  God." 

The  men  to  whom  reference  is  made  served  their 
generation;  to  do  more  than  this  is  given  to 
few.  This  limited  definable  service  is  great, 
and  hi  the  character  of  a  people  it  becomes  an 
enduring  service.  Thus  viewed  these  New  Eng- 
land thinkers  are  seen  to  be  of  heroic  size. 
Those  ponderous  volumes  of  divinity,  with  the 
shadow  of  death  resting  upon  them,  become  pro- 
foundly significant.  In  purpose  and  in  scope 
they  are  alive  with  human  interest.  Thus 
preachers  honored  their  calling  in  those  pro- 
phetic days ;  thus  they  honored  the  brotherhood 
of  preachers ;  thus  they  fought  their  brave  bat- 


PREFACE  » 

tie  under  the  sense  of  a  vanishing  world.  For 
upon  their  world,  as  upon  a  scroll,  the  judgment 
was  written :  — 

"  The  cloud-capped  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces, 
The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself, 
Yea,  all  which  it  inherit,  shall  dissolve, 
And,  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision, 
Leave  not  a  rack  behind." 

In  recognition  of  the  spirit  and  of  the  high 
custom  of  our  predecessors  the  present  volume 
is  issued.  It  contains,  in  outline,  the  working 
theology  of  one  who  considers  his  calling  the 
greatest  opportunity  for  service  that  God  has 
given  to  man.  It  is  sent  forth,  not  without  a 
deep  sense  of  its  unworthiness,  in  the  hope  that 
it  may  do  something  to  stimulate  interest  in  the 
vocation  of  the  preacher  as  the  teacher  of  re- 
ligion, and  of  the  ideas  essential  to  the  life  of 
the  spirit ;  that  it  may  animate  among  those  now 
entering  the  ministry  men  of  intellectual  genius, 
and  help  to  draw  from  them  a  contribution 
worthier  than  itself,  toward  the  creation  of  the 
greater  theology  of  the  future ;  that  it  may  aid 
in  promoting  among  the  brotherhood  of  preach- 
ers mutual  understanding,  and  the  sense  of  happy 
fellowship  in  the  service  of  the  highest  ideals. 
GEORGE  A.  GORDON. 

OLD  SOUTH  PARSONAGE,  Boston, 
April  15, 1903. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

PAG« 

I.   The  subject  and  its  limitations 3 

1.  Definition  of  theology  and  of  the  theologian    .     .  8 

2.  The  professional  and  non-professional  theologian  4 

3.  The  professional  theologian  a  permanent  neces- 

sity   8 

H.   The  preacher's  opportunity  as  theologian    ....  13 

1.  His  closeness  to  religious  experience 15 

2.  His  stimulus  to  creative  thought 18 

3.  His  vocation  a  discipline  in  things  essential     .     .  22 

4.  His  perspective  on  the  whole  sound 24 

III.  The  origins  of  theology 27 

1.  In  the  Hebrew  prophets 27 

2.  In  the  teaching  of  Jesus 28 

3.  In  the  letters  of  Paul 29 

4.  In  the  leaders  in  the  church 31 

IV.  Preaching  as  a  test  of  ideas 35 

1.  The  purification  of  doctrine 38 

(1)  Election 38 

(2)  Depravity 39 

(3)  Atonement 40 

(I)  Retribution 44 

2.  The  verification  of  doctrine 44 

V.   The  definition  of  the  preacher 47 

1.  He  applies  noble  ideas  to  life 47 

2.  He  is  not  limited  to  application  of  ideas ....  48 

3.  Life  and  ideas  equally  his  study 48 

4.  The  preacher's  opportunity  as  thinker     ....  50 


xiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  QUEST   FOB  A   THEOLOGY 

I.  The  distinction  between  religion  and  theology     .     .  52 

1.  Religion  an  original  necessity,  theology  a  derived 

and  limited  necessity 53 

2.  Religion  essential  to  man,  theology  essential  to 

the  teacher  of  religion 54 

3.  Theology  stands  for  intellect  in  the  service  of  the 

heart 57 

II.   The  theological  tradition  of  the  church 60 

1.  The  apologists 61 

2.  The  Greek  and  the  Latin  theologians      ....  64 

3.  The  reformers  and  their  successors 66 

III.   The  theological  tradition  incompetent 74 

1.  As  yet  only  the  promise  of  a  theology  for  to-day  75 

2.  The  mastery  of  the  new  science 76 

3.  The  discovery  of  the  new  Bible 78 

4.  The  encounter  with  new  philosophies      ....  80 
IV.   A  typical  theological  experience 82 

V.  New  principles  and  their  prophetic  quality ....  91 

CHAPTER  HI 

THE    CATEGORIES   OF   FAITH 

I.   The  world  as  an  aggregate  of  individuals  in  interre- 
lations    100 

1.  Knowledge  is  of  the  significant  aspects  of  things 

and  persons 102 

2.  The  psychology  of  knowledge  in  the  infant  mind  103 

3.  The  moral  world  and  moral  knowledge  ....  107 
II.   The  work  of  the  intellect  in  the  categories  of  know- 
ledge      110 

1.  The  early  Greek  philosophers Ill 

2.  Socrates  and  his  vocation 112 

3.  The  categories  in  the  hands  of  Plato 113 

4.  Aristotle,  Kant,  and  Hegel  in  this  evolution  of 

mental  forms 116 

5.  The  progress  and  incompleteness  in  the  process  .  119 


CONTENTS  XV 

III.  The  work  of    the   intellect   in  the   categories   of 

faith 120 

1.  The  categories  of  Augustine  and  traditional  the- 

ology     123 

2.  Their  fundamental  merit 124 

3.  Their  defects 126 

4.  The  revision  of  theology  inevitable  and  inevitably 

incomplete 130 

IV.  The  scheme  advanced  here 131 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE:    PERSONALITY 

L  The  subject  introduced 137 

1.  Hume  on  personality 139 

2.  A  characteristic  of  Buddhism 139 

3.  Personality  the  abiding  and  unique  reality  of  the 

single  human  being 141 

II.   Witnesses  to  personality  in  the  personal  mind .     .     .  142 

1.  The  combining  or  unifying  function  of  mind    .     .  143 

2.  The  fact  of  judgment  and  its  meaning    ....  150 

3.  The  will  as  a  witness  to  personality 151 

III.  Other  witnesses  to  personality 154 

1.  Science  as  an  organization  of  knowledge ....  155 

2.  The  conception  of  a  universe  and  its  source     .     .  159 

3.  Art  as  a  world  of  unity 159 

4.  The  personal  centres  of  historic  influence    .     .     .  160 

5.  Personality  as  the  condition  of  human  society .     .  161 

6.  Personality  and  religion 162 

7.  Personality  and  immortality 166 

IV.  Personality  as  a  capacity  to  be  realized 169 

CHAPTER  V 

THE  SOCIAL  ULTIMATE:  HUMANITY 

I.   The  various  moods  in  which  man  regards  man     .     .  175 

1.  Carlyle,  Emerson,  and  Phillips  Brooks   .     .     .    .175 

2.  The  old  debate  between  realist  and  nominalist    .  177 

3.  The  judgment  parable  of  Jesus 178 


xvi  CONTENTS 

4.  The  definition  of  humanity 180 

II.   The  perils  of  humanity 185 

1.  The  naturalistic  view  of  existence 186 

2.  The  survival  of  the  fittest 190 

3.  The  idea  of  conditional  immortality 194 

4.  An  inhuman  view  of  the  universe  and  an  inhuman 

spirit 197 

III.   The  permanent  guardians  of  humanity 199 

1.  Man's  personality 199 

2.  The  Christian  idea  of  stewardship 201 

3.  The  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  as  a  doctrine  and  as  a 

spirit 206 

CHAPTER  VI 

THE   HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE  :   OPTIMISM 

I.   The  various  moods  in  which  history  may  be  viewed    211 

1.  That  human  affairs  are  going  from  bad  to  worse  .  211 

2.  That  human  affairs  are  steadily  improving      .     .  212 

3.  Hypothetical  optimism 213 

4.  Optimism  and  character 213 

5.  The  position  of  the  writer 214 

II.   Optimism  and  pessimism  and  the  preacher  ....  218 

1.  Individual  men  not  the  sole  aim  in  preaching  .     .  220 

2.  Families,  communities,  nations,  races  come  into 

view 221 

3.  The  social  faith  of  the  Hebrew  prophet ....  222 

4.  Jesus  Christ  and  the  social  whole 222 

HI.  The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  optimism 225 

1.  The  conception  of  a  coming  golden  age  may  be  a 

delusion 225 

2.  If  real,  it  will  be  for  those  who  do  not  deserve  it  226 

3.  Pain  resulting  from  maladjustment  of  organism 

to  environment 228 

4.  The  limit  upon  genius  as  a  bequest* 229 

6.  The  fact  of  death 229 

6.  The  moral  failures  of  history 230 

a.  Those  through  deplorable  inheritance  and  en- 
vironment     230 


CONTENTS  xvii 

b.  Those  through  perversity 231 

7.  The  personal  equation 232 

IV.   The  foundations  of  optimism  in  fact 237 

1.  The  great  fact  of  general  human  progress  .     .     .  237 

2.  Organism  and  environment  coming  into  harmony    238 

3.  Science  aiding  the  work  of  natural  selection    .     .  239 

4.  Improvement  in  the  condition  of  labor    ....  240 

5.  Education  for  freedom 241 

6.  Work  and  character  and  happiness, 242 

V-  The  foundations  of  optimism  in  faith 243 

1.  God's  world-plan  for  the  education  of  mankind    .  243 

2.  The  strong  man  and  the  worthy  cause     ....  244 

3.  The  weak  and  the  worthy  cause 245 

4.  The  perverse  man  and  the  process  of  experience  .  246 

5.  Historic  optimism  and  the  eternal  world      .     .     .  248 

CHAPTER  VII 

THE   RELIGIOUS   ULTIMATE:    JESUS   CHRIST 

I.   The  just  attitude  toward  Jesus 257 

1.  The  critical  spirit 259 

2.  The  spirit  of  discipleship 261 

II.   The  worth  of  Jesus  for  life 264 

1.  The  testimony  of  individual  experience  ....  264 

2.  The  testimony  of  historic  experience 265 

3.  The  testimony  of  religious  genius  ......  266 

4.  The  verdict  of  life  a  verdict  for  Jesus     .     .     .     .  267 

III.  The  judgment  of  Jesus  about  himself 271 

1.  The  practicalness  of  his  religion 273 

2.  The  beauty  of  his  teaching 276 

3.  The  finality  of  his  thought  and  spirit      ....  279 

IV.  What  is  meant  by  the  consciousness  of  Christ  ?    .     .  281 

1.  The  disciple's  consciousness  of  his  master    .     .     .  281 

2.  The  mind  of  Christ  as  the  law  of  the  spiritual 

man 282 

3.  The  ways  in  which  this  mind  is  reached ....  286 
V.   The  person  of  Jesus  Christ 290 

1.  The  doctrine  of  God  the  logical  precedent  .     .     .  291 

2.  The  perfect  manhood  of  Jesus 292 


xviii  CONTENTS 

3.  The  unique  union  between  the  Eternal  Son  and 

Jesus 293 

4.  The  positions  of  Origen  upon  this  subject    .     .     .  293 
6.  Jesus  the  sovereign  assurance  of  God      ....  295 

CHAPTER  VIH 

THE  UNIVERSAL   ULTIMATE:    THE    MORAL   UNIVERSE 

I.   Fundamental  and  secondary  questions 297 

1.  Science  and  the  reality  of  its  object 298 

2.  Anthropology  and  personality 299 

3.  Eschatology  and  immortality 300 

4.  The  higher  criticism  and  a  self -revealing  God  .     .  308 
II.   The  reality  of  the  moral  world 311 

1.  Human  society  is  such  a  world 311 

2.  Man  discriminates  between  his  world  and  nature  .  311 

3.  And  between  his  world  and  the  animal  world  .     .  312 

4.  And  between  the  actual  and  the  ideal  in  himself  .  314 

5.  Law  as  an  expression  of  man's  moral  world     .     .  315 

6.  Moral  criticism  and  its  significance 316 

7.  The  moral  criticism  of  the  universe 317 

III.   The  moral  universe  and  its  witnesses 319 

1.  Organism  and  environment 319 

2.  The  three  forms  of  the  faith  in  the  moral  universe  322 

a.  The  cosmos  favors  the  moral  cause     ....  323 

b.  The  moral  conflict  of  man  a  universal  conflict .  324 

c.  The  intercommunion  of  the  human  and  the  di- 

vine      327 

CHAPTER  IX 

THE  ABSOLUTE   ULTIMATE  :    GOD. 

L  The  meaning  of  the  idea  of  God 332 

1.  For  the  reason 333 

2.  For  the  artistic  sense 334 

3.  For  the  conscience .,  334 

4.  God  the  full  account  of  humanity 335 

II.   The  existence  of  God 338 

1.  Revelation  and  discovery 338 


CONTENTS  xix 

2.  The  idea  of  God  man's  supreme  achievement  and 

comfort 340 

3.  Theistic  education  and  theistic  thought  ....  341 

4.  Beginnings  of  theistic  proof  and  how  they  event- 

uate      346 

III.  The  mode  of  God's  existence 356 

1.  The  unitary  conception  of  God 366 

2.  The  social  conception  of  God 370 

3.  Man  the  measure  of  all  things 375 

4.  The  significance  of  the  Trinity 382 


ULTIMATE  CONCEPTIONS  OF 
FAITH 


ULTIMATE  CONCEPTIONS  OF 
FAITH 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    PREACHER    AS    A    THEOLOGIAN 
I 

THE  Greek  equivalents  of  our  English  words 
theology  and  theologian  are  important  as  bring- 
ing one  face  to  face  with  a  fundamental  and  uni- 
versal human  interest.  For  the  Greeks  the  theo- 
logian is  a  speaker  about  God  or  divine  things, 
and  in  their  language  he  is  styled  OtoXoyos.  His 
vocation  is  indicated  by  a  verb,  a  noun,  and  an 
adjective  transformed  into  a  substantive,  0eoAoyc'a>, 
to  speak  about  God ;  0eoAoyia,  the  act  of  speaking 
about  God,  the  calling  or  vocation  of  the  person 
who  thus  speaks ;  Oeo\oyiKrj,  speaking  about  God 
in  the  order  of  reason.  Theology  is  thus,  pri- 
marily, speech  about  the  Supreme  Being  fired 
with  insight,  informed  with  knowledge,  and 
guided  by  method ;  the  theologian  is  one  who 
discourses  upon  the  sovereign  meanings  of  exist- 
ence. The  discourse  is  that  of  a  trained  intel- 


4        THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

ligence ;  the  speech  is  presumed  to  be  coherent 
speech.  It  is,  of  course,  inevitable  that  where 
this  speech  is  thought  to  be  of  value  it  should 
be  recorded,  and  thus  become  literature.  It 
must  be  added  that  while  this  exposition  pro- 
vides for  the  theologian,  it  does  not  provide  for 
the  Christian  theologian.  He  is  one  who  thinks 
and  speaks  about  God  and  divine  things  in  the 
light  of  the  teaching  and  achievement  of  Jesus 
Christ.  He  is  one  who  studies  the  Ancient  of 
Days  under  new  conditions,  who  reads  the  sov- 
ereign meanings  of  existence  in  new  light,  and 
whose  speech  is  supposed  to  be  ordered,  wise, 
reasonable  speech. 

Theologians  are  of  two  kinds,  the  professional 
and  the  non-professional.  Theology  is  the  ex- 
clusive calling  of  the  professional  theologian. 
He  pursues  his  object  with  an  outfit  of  learning, 
and  with  a  precision  of  method  peculiarly  his  own, 
and  in  a  technical  manner  suited  to  his  purpose. 
The  vocation  of  the  non-professional  theologian 
is  preaching ;  for  him  theology  is  not  an  interest 
standing  alone  or  supreme.  It  is  indispensable 
to  him  as  a  teacher  and  inspirer  of 'religion;  and 
he  is  a  theologian  because  of  the  sovereignty  of 
the  religious  interest  A  parallel  might  be  found 
in  the  bad  fashion  now  prevailing  of  expounding 
the  science  of  logic  by  mathematical  formulae ; 
in  order  to  be  a  logician  it  is  necessary  to  become 


RELIGION  ISSUES  IN  THEOLOGY  5 

a  mathematician.  The  business  man  may  be  a 
political  economist,  the  physician  a  biologist,  the 
lawyer  a  contributor  to  the  science  of  juris- 
prudence. Again,  all  the  natural  sciences  as- 
sume the  reality  of  the  external  world ;  therefore 
the  scientist,  because  of  his  interest  in  physics  or 
chemistry,  may  raise  the  ultimate  question,  What 
is  the  nature  of  the  external  world  ?  He  thus 
finds  that  his  science  leads  inevitably  to  meta- 
physics. The  history  of  science  bears  out  the 
truth  of  this  remark.  Tyndall,  Huxley,  Haeckel, 
Wallace,  and  even  Darwin,  the  purest  of  scien- 
tists, became  involved  in  ultimate  questions. 
They  are  transformed  by  the  strength  of  their 
primary  interest  into  non-professional  metaphy- 
sicians. Herbert  Spencer  is  an  extreme  instance  ; 
he  is  first  scientist  and  then  philosopher.  He 
will  serve  to  show  how  an  intermediate  vocation 
leads  on  to  an  ultimate,  how  inevitably  any  call- 
ing whose  interests  concern  the  character  of  the 
universe  forces  its  radical  and  serious  servant 
back  upon  fundamental  issues.  The  man  whose 
vocation  is  preaching  is  forced  back  by  this  very 
interest  upon  theology.  Indeed,  in  the  original 
and  august  meaning  of  the  word,  the  preacher 
finds  that  theology  is  inseparable  from  his  call- 
ing, that  it  is  the  essence  and  soul  of  it.  Speech 
to  God  is  the  prayer  which  he  offers  for  his  peo- 
ple and  for  himself,  and  speech  concerning  God 


6        THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

and  divine  things  is  the  burden  of  his  message. 
He  may  not  claim  to  stand  among  professionals ; 
he  falls  below  his  privilege  when  he  does  not 
assert  his  right  and  vindicate  it  to  stand  among 
theologians. 

In  the  vigorous  and  confident  presentation  of 
a  single  line  of  thought,  it  is  nearly  inevitable 
that  one  shall  seem  to  make  extravagant  claims, 
and  perhaps  appear  to  fail  in  justice  toward  other 
ideas.  It  is  Very  difficult  to  discuss  the  theory 
of  state  rights  without  appearing  to  nullify  the 
power  of  the  federal  government.  It  is  equally 
difficult  to  present  the  conception  of  federal  sov- 
ereignty without  seeming  to  obliterate  the  auto- 
nomy of  the  individual  state.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  egoism  and  altruism  in  ethics,  of  indi- 
vidualism and  socialism  in  the  industrial  order, 
of  particularism  and  universalism  in  philoso- 
phy, of  free-will  and  predestination  in  theology. 
These  are  examples  of  the  acute  form  of  the 
apparent  injustice  to  one  truth  which  is  apt  to 
result  from  the  energetic  presentation  of  another 
and  complementary  truth.  All  that  a  writer  can 
do,  where  his  purpose  limits  him  to  a  particular 
aspect  of  a  complex  subject,  is  to  make  a  general 
disclaimer,  and  then  to  trust  to  the  good  sense 
and  honor  of  his  reader.  In  writing  of  the 
preacher  as  a  theologian,  I  shall  try  to  be  fair 
to  the  professional  theologian.  His  vocation 


THE  PROFESSIONAL  THEOLOGIAN     .    7 

seems  to  me  to  be  absolutely  indispensable.  The 
work  that  he  is  set  to  do  is  of  fundamental  mo- 
ment, and  no  one  can  do  it  who  is  without  the 
learning  or  the  leisure  of  the  professional  student 
and  thinker.  There  are  two  sides  to  the  shield, 
and  it  can  do  no  harm  to  look  at  both.  In  an 
essay  on  the  vocation  of  the  preacher  in  its  bear- 
ings upon  theology,  we  should  not  expect  to  find 
praise  of  another  vocation.  Some  things  may  be 
said  in  favor  of  the  non-professional  theologian, 
and  "  with  charity  toward  all,  and  with  malice 
toward  none,"  I  purpose  to  say  them. 

The  professional  theologian  has  played  an 
immense  part  during  the  last  fifty  years.  The 
old  custom  according  to  which  the  minister  was 
the  chief  educator  of  young  men  for  the  preach- 
er's calling  has  wholly  disappeared.  The  train- 
ing of  those  who  aim  at  becoming  preachers  has 
passed  entirely  into  the  hands  of  the  professional 
scholar.  The  professional  theologian  is  a  scholar 
and  a  teacher ;  he  is  in  constant  and  ever  wider 
contact  with  books,  and  he  is  in  fellowship  with 
elect  youth.  He  has  a  further  advantage.  He 
goes  over  the  same  ground  with  a  new  class 
every  year.  He  has  the  inestimable  benefit  of 
class  suggestion,  questioning,  and  criticism.  He 
becomes  a  master  in  his  subject ;  every  great 
light  upon  it,  historic  and  contemporary,  is  at 
his  command.  Thus  the  results  of  his  study 


8        THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

ripen  into  a  body  of  mature  teaching,  and  he  is 
in  a  position  to  issue  books  that  may  be  justly 
regarded  as  the  books  -of  an  authority  in  his 
subject.  The  equipment  of  the  scholar  and  the 
vocation  of  the  teacher  have  given  an  immense 
opportunity  to  the  professional  theologian. 

When  we  consider  the  product  of  the  profes- 
sional theologian  in  literary  achievement  or  in 
influence,  his  position  is  equally  commanding. 
To  the  professional  scholar  we  are  indebted  for 
the  corrected  texts  of  the  Old  Testament  and  of 
the  New.  To  him  we  are  under  obligation  for 
the  new  view  of  these  Scriptures  that  has  taken 
possession  of  the  educated  world  ;  to  him  we  go 
for  scientific  exegesis,  historical  learning,  and 
results ;  and  not  infrequently  he  is  the  author- 
ity for  the  just  sense  of  the  relation  of  Chris- 
tianity and  its  historic  forms  to  the  culture  of4 
mankind.  In  our  own  country  the  professional 
theologian  is  an  increasing  necessity  and  an  in- 
creasing influence.  He  alone  has  the  adequate 
learning  and  leisure  to  enter  and  occupy  the 
new  fields  of  interest ;  he  alone  can  undertake 
thorough  and  fruitful  research ;  he  and  his 
guild  have  become  so  essential  that  it  would 
seem  as  if  they  possessed  the  right  of  eminent 
domain  over  the  whole  expanse  of  theology.  In 
view  of  the  achievements  and  influence  of  the 
last  fifty  years  must  we  not  confine  the  term 


THE  TEACHER  AND  THE  PREACHER       9 

theologian  to  the  eminent  members  in  a  society 
of  scholars  devoted  to  the  study  of  religion  ?  In 
view  of  the  work  that  remains  to  be  done  is  it 
not  presumption  in  a  preacher  to  think  of  his 
vocation  as  consistent  with  that  of  the  theolo- 
gian ?  Since  theology  has  formed  itself  into  a 
trust  in  the  hands  of  professionals,  and  since  the 
people  are  becoming  more  and  more  alive  to  the 
immense  public  benefits  of  this  trust,  is  there 
any  room  left  for  the  non-professional  theologian, 
or  any  reasonable  hope  of  influence  ? 

Another  question  arises,  Are  the  functions  of 
the  teacher  and  the  preacher  incompatible  ?  Are 
those  calls  sometimes  extended  to  ministers,  in 
which  they  are  invited  to  become  the  pastor  and 
"  teacher  "  of  the  church,  framed  upon  an  obso- 
lete pattern  ?  Is  he  the  ideal  preacher  to  whom 
the  words  of  the  Fifth  Spirit  in  "  Manfred  "  can 
be  applied  — 

"  I  am  the  Rider  of  the  wind, 
The  Stirrer  of  the  storm ; 
The  hurricane  I  left  behind 
Is  yet  with  lightning  warm  "  ? 

Is  inspiration  the  only  function  of  preaching? 
Is  it  no  longer  possible  to  trust  to  the  power  of 
ideas  ?  Has  the  standard  of  intelligence  fallen  in 
the  church  while  it  has  risen  everywhere  else  in 
the  community  ?  Has  the  prophet  himself  sunk 
to  the  position  of  those  who  wait  on  tables  ?  Is 


10      THE  PREACHER  AS  A   THEOLOGIAN 

the  cry  obsolete,  "  Ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and 
the  truth  shall  make  you  free "  ?  Is  a  great 
character  a  product  possible  without  the  media- 
tion of  an  enlightened  mind  ?  Is  belief  about  the 
universe  of  no  account  ?  Have  believers  ceased 
to  care  for  coherent  belief  ?  Is  there  no  hope  for 
the  churchgoer  of  gaining,  through  the  some- 
what grievous  discipline,  a  wider  vision,  a  nobler 
order  of  ideas,  a  more  reasonable  scheme  of 
faith? 

The  ideas  of  faith  and  the  order  of  ideas  that 
we  name  theology  belong  to  man  as  man.  For 
certain  purposes  the  technical  treatment  of  these 
ideas  is  necessary;  for  certain  ends  a  rigorous 
scientific  procedure  in  theology  is  indispensable. 
Still  this  is  only  one  form  of  theology.  The 
same  ideas  may  be  treated  with  equal  depth  in 
another  way.  The  method  of  Butler  in  the 
"  Analogy  "  in  dealing  with  the  question  of  the 
future  life  is  severer  far  than  the  method  of 
Plato  in  the  "  Phaedo."  Is  it  on  that  account 
profounder,  or  more  comprehensive,  or  more 
adequate?  It  is  a  conviction  of  mine  that  the 
profoundest  of  the  essentially  vital  ideas  of  the 
race  may  be  presented  in  forms  level  to  the  aver- 
age earnest  understanding.  Kant's  great  ques- 
tion, "  What  makes  experience  possible  ?  "  as 
answered  by  him  would  be  a  hopeless  puzzle  to 
even  the  enlightened  reader  unaided  by  a  good 


THEOLOGY  A  HUMAN  INTEREST         11 

teacher.  But  it  is  possible  for  that  teacher  to 
answer  Kant's  fundamental  question  in  a  man- 
ner level  to  the  understanding  of  an  earnest  and 
open-minded  farmer.  Kant's  question  concerns 
the  intelligence  of  man  ;  his  answer  concerns 
man.  And  in  the  universal  human  interest  of 
the  question  and  the  answer  lies  the  possibility 
of  a  version  of  them  not  only  for  professional 
thinkers,  but  also  for  earnest  and  inquiring  minds 
of  every  class.  Theology  is  the  work  of  the  few. 
To  do  this  work  well,  to  supply  versions  of  faith 
of  a  high  technical  order,  will  require  the  equip- 
ment and  learning  of  the  professional  scholar 
and  thinker.  Theology  is  the  work  of  the  few 
for  the  many.  It  must  appear  in  versions  for 
the  many.  It  is  a  national  interest,  it  is  a  hu- 
man interest ;  and  in  giving  form  to  this  inter- 
est the  preacher  may  rise  to  the  position  of  the 
theologian. 

The  requisite  knowledge  seems  to  many  be- 
yond the  preacher.  Art  is  long  and  time  is  fleet- 
ing. Even  the  scholar  confesses  his  inability  to 
reach  a  synthesis  of  belief.  We  live  in  depart- 
ments, and  the  vision  of  the  whole  is  a  thing  of 
yesterday.  Let  it  become  the  hope  of  to-morrow. 
The  width  of  the  theologic  field  should  not  be 
a  permanent  discouragement.  We  have  come 
upon  a  strange  epoch,  and  we  must  not  govern 
the  world  of  man  by  its  law.  Long  views  are 


12      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

essential  if  we  would  deal  justly  with  great  ques- 
tions. Times  of  revolution  in  the  thoughts  of 
mankind  are  infrequent,  and  it  would  be  unwise, 
when  they  do  come,  to  find  in  them  the  law  and 
limitation  of  intellectual  work.  The  permanent 
results  of  learning  and  discovery  are  indefinitely 
compressible.  A  generation '  hence  evolution 
with  its  new  natural  history  of  animal  life  and 
of  man ;  the  modern  view  of  the  Bible ;  the 
greater  development  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  ; 
the  spirit  of  justice  and  humanity,  in  the  light 
of  which  we  are  trying  to  find  the  meaning  of 
existence  and  the  character  of  the  universe,  will 
be  mastered  as  swiftly  and  as  easily  as  the  chil- 
dren now  master  the  theory  of  the  solar  system 
inherited  from  Copernicus  and  his  time.  Fifty 
years  ago  there  was  not  in  Great  Britain  or  in 
America  a  single  scholar  who  comprehended  the 
purpose  of  Immanuel  Kant  in  his  "  Critique  of 
Pure  Reason."  To-day  thousands  of  educated 
youth,  whose  tastes  incline  that  way,  leave  col- 
lege for  the  differing  vocations  of  life  with  a 
clear  sense  of  Kant's  purpose,  and  of  the  move- 
ment of  German  philosophy  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  consensus  of  thinkers  and  scholars 
simplifies  knowledge,  and  this  consensus  is  bound, 
under  scientific  method,  to  cover  ever  wider 
fields  of  intellectual  interest.  The  frontiers  of 
learning  have,  in  our  time,  called  for  the  reclaim- 


SCIENCE  SIMPLIFIES  KNOWLEDGE       18 

ing  of  the  whole  territory,  but  it  cannot  be  so 
always.  The  frontiers  must  always  remain  a 
place  of  some  confusion,  but  the  normal  thing 
is  a  vast  and  peaceful  procession  behind  them. 
The  human  outlook  has  been  for  nearly  a  cen- 
tury heterogeneous  and  bewildering,  and  we  are 
apt  to  conclude  that  we  have  entered  upon  a  mil- 
lennium of  surprises,  shocks,  revolutions,  and 
contradictions  of  historic  opinion.  These  epochs 
have  come ;  they  will  doubtless  come  again : 
but  they  come  infrequently,  and  the  interval  is 
blessed  with  the  vision  of  returning  homogene'ity 
and  order.  Axioms  are  the  uncontradicted 
wisdom  of  mankind ;  under  rigorous  scientific 
method  axioms  are  bound  to  multiply,  and  ax- 
ioms are  easily  learned.  We  predict,  therefore, 
an  easier  mastery  of  the  intellectual  world  for 
the  coming  student  and  thinker,  and  a  new 
chance  for  the  non-professional  theologian. 

II 

The  generative  nature  of  experience  —  one 
of  the  great  insights  of  Aristotle1  —  has  an 
important  bearing  here.  Every  science  is  a 
thought-structure  growing  out  of  the  appreci- 
ation of  fact.  The  ascertainment  of  the  facts 
and  the  discovery  of  their  value  are  the  marks 
of  true  science.  The  initial  necessity  of  every 

1  Prior  Analytics,  Book  I.  chap.  xxx.  10-28. 


14      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

science  is  the  appropriate  substance  or  matter  of 
fact.  Many  there  are  who  can  conduct  the  con- 
ventional argument  from  the  conventional  pre- 
mises ;  the  hope  of  progress  lies  chiefly  in  the 
discovery  of  new  premises.  Theology  has  been, 
in  certain  periods  not  very  remote,  a  matter  of 
text-building,  as  of  hewn  stones  from  the  quar- 
ries of  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments.  The 
theologia  sacra  is  gone.  A  Bible  infallible  in 
all  its  parts,  the  perfect  truth  in  every  word, 
made  theology  an  easy  science  in  the  light  of 
traditional  thinking.  Historical  study,  and  the 
acquisition  of  the  historical  sense,  and  the  power 
to  rest  all  thought  on  the  strength  and  validity 
of  its  insight,  have  discredited  theologia  sacra.1 
This  easy  method  is  no  longer  respectable. 
Words,  sentences,  histories,  letters,  literatures, 
are  symbols.  They  must  be  dissolved  into  the 
life  of  the  spirit  before  a  beginning  can  be  made 
in  the  rational  appreciation  of  them.  A  scientist 
without  eyes  and  ears  and  hands,  a  scientist  with- 
out senses,  incapable  of  life  through  the  senses, 
or  wholly  careless  of  life  through  the  senses  would 
be  a  novelty  in  his  class.  The  scientist  with  the 
greatest  initial  advantage  is  he  whose  life  through 
the  senses  is  the  widest  and  richest.  Theology 
is  an  intellectual  world  either  well  or  ill  founded. 
The  test  is  in  the  relation  of  this  building  of  man 
1  Harnack,  Protestantism,  p.  24. 


THEOLOGY  AND  LIFE  15 

to  the  spiritual  experience  of  man.  Fantastic 
theologies  curiously  and  elaborately  wrought  exist 
in  vast  dead  volumes.  There  is  in  these  volumes 
an  abundance  of  vigor  and  acuteness ;  their  dead- 
ness  is  in  their  unresponsiveness  to  the  spirit 
in  man.  They  have  eyes  that  glare,  but  with  no 
speculation  in  them.  The  theologian  with  the 
greatest  initial  advantage  is  he  whose  share  in 
the  sane  spiritual  life  of  mankind  is  deepest,  in 
whom  the  significant  religious  moods  find  the 
noblest  expression,  and  who  is  a  constant  and 
sympathetic  student  of  contemporary  religious 
experience.  Valid  theology  is  the  just  and  in- 
evitable expression  in  the  forms  of  the  intellect 
of  the  life  of  the  spirit.  It  presupposes  life  ;  it 
is  an  expression  in  terms  of  reason  of  that  life ; 
the  expression  is  called  for  by  the  implicit  en- 
ergy of  the  religious  spirit,  and  in  the  call  there 
is  a  note  of  rigor,  a  pressure  as  of  moral  neces- 
sity, which  some  day  will  be  the  great  distin- 
guishing mark  of  the  resulting  theology. 

Here,  then,  is  the  commanding  advantage  of 
the  preacher.  If  he  is  fit  for  his  vocation  he  is 
in  the  spiritual  life  of  the  world.  The  genera- 
tive power  of  experience  is  in  constant  operation 
under  his  eyes.  He  may  be  unequal  to  his  privi- 
lege ;  the  privilege  is  nevertheless  his.  Many  a 
scholar  has  written  about  the  Bible  during  the 
last  fifty  years  with  no  living  faith  in  religion, 


16      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

and  with  no  sympathy  with  the  spiritual  experi- 
ence of  which  the  book  is  the  monumental  sym- 
bol. In  such  cases  the  critic,  literary  and  his- 
torical, is  dealing  with  the  coat  of  many  colors, 
emptied  of  its  human  treasure,  trying  to  conjec- 
ture from  the  circumstances  in  which  the  coat 
was  found,  and  the  condition  of  it,  the  fate  of 
the  beloved  youth  who  wore  it.  To  a  critic  of 
this  character  the  Bible  is  at  best  but  the  sacred 
and  sad  surviving  garment  of  a  vanished  race, 
of  a  perished  religion.  Much  good  guessing  has 
been  done  by  higher  critics  of  this  temper,  and 
much  clearing  up  of  points  of  history.  But  for 
the  thinker  in  this  mood  there  are  no  premises 
for  a  theology.  Even  where  the  temper  is  be- 
lieving and  the  spirit  sympathetic  the  scholar 
who  is  in  isolation  from  contemporary  religious 
experience  is  at  a  disadvantage.  Science  is  not 
to-day  studied  in  books ;  it  is  conducted  by  ex- 
periment. The  laboratory  is  the  essential  con- 
dition of  modern  science.  The  eyes  must  rest 
on  the  process  of  things ;  thought  must  wait 
upon  reality.  The  world  of  learning  is  a  world 
in  books  and  in  the  minds  of  scholars  and 
teachers.  It  is  a  world  of  infinite  value;  and 
yet  it  is  incomplete.  The  scholar  needs  a  share 
in  contemporary  religion  and  in  contemporary 
religious  activity.  He  needs  access  to  the  souls 
of  men  as  they  religiously  bear  in  our  time  the 


THE  PREACHER'S  PRIVILEGE  17 

burden  and  heat  of  the  day.  He  must  look 
upon  the  contemporaneous  religious  life,  he  must 
observe  the  vast  present-day  operation  of  the 
human  conscience,  and  catch,  if  he  can,  the  song 
of  the  spirit  immanent  in  the  immediate  process 
of  the  soul :  — 

"  At  the  whirring  loom  of  time  nnawed, 
I  weave  the  living  mantle  of  God." 

Here  is  the  generative  source  of  theology ;  here 
are  the  materials  for  a  building  of  God,  the 
premises  for  a  valid  construction  for  faith. 

Sightless  eyes  will  discover  no  stars  even 
when  the  heavens  are  bright  with  their  light. 
This  does  not  mean  that  the  wilderness  is  the 
place  to  find  flowers.  Opportunity  is  of  inex- 
pressible moment.  The  great  procession  is  for- 
ever passing  under  the  preacher's  eyes,  —  birth 
and  its  sacrament  of  love,  youth  and  its  world 
of  burning  ideals,  home  with  its  burden  and 
privilege,  its  history  of  unutterable  depth  and 
sanctity,  its  experience  whose  precious  meanings 
no  words  can  hold,  its  hopes  like  light  piercing 
black  clouds,  its  entire  existence  a  texture  woven 
of  sunbeams  and  of  darkness ;  man  in  the  sum 
of  his  human  relations,  man  in  his  attitude  to- 
ward the  Infinite,  man  at  work  and  at  rest,  in 
sickness  and  in  health,  in  shame  and  under  the 
shadow  of  the  cross,  a  doubter  and  a  believer, 
defiant  and  in  entire  reconciliation  to  the  will 


18      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

of  the  Most  High.  The  preacher  is  a  dweller 
on  the  shores  of  the  eternal  deep.  Its  tides  ebb 
and  flow  under  his  vision ;  its  murmur  and 
thunder  are  the  minor  and  major  of  an  anthem 
to  which  he  is  always  an  eager  listener.  If  the 
preacher  is  without  an  understanding  heart  all 
this  will  avail  nothing;  but  given  the  insight, 
here  is  an  unequaled  opportunity  for  discourse 
about  God  and  divine  things,  in  the  grand  uni- 
son of  reason  and  passion.  The  preacher  should 
be  beyond  all  others  prism-eyed,  and  what  is  to 
ordinary  vision  but  common  day  should  be  to 
him  full  of  auroral  fires  and  sunset  hues. 

The  vocation  of  the  preacher  is  a  stimulus  to 
creative  activity.  It  is  this  in  two  ways.  It 
prohibits  the  scholar's  ideal  from  taking  exclu- 
sive possession  of  the  preacher,  and  it  calls  for 
the  fresh  and,  if  possible,  original  treatment  of 
the  needs  of  the  soul  and  of  God's  historic 
answer  to  them.  It  takes  courage  to  say  that 
learning  may  sometimes  be  a  hindrance.  It  was 
said  of  Paul  that  much  learning  had  made  him 
mad ;  it  is  further  said  that  of  this  kind  of  mad- 
ness his  accuser  was  a  poor  judge.  There  is  no 
immediate  dauger  of  an  epidemic  of  this  malady 
among  modern  preachers.  Probably  the  last 
charge  to  be  brought  to  the  preacher's  door  will 
be  that  of  too  much  learning.  If  we  should 
thank  God  for  our  ignorance  the  famous  retort 


LIMITATIONS  OF  LEARNING  19 

of  the  Methodist  would  be  in  order :  "  Brethren, 
you  have  a  great  deal  to  be  thankful  for."  This 
is,  however,  not  the  whole  case.  John  Stuart 
Mill,  hi  accounting  for  the  philosophic  failures 
of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  lays  great  stress  upon 
the  fact  that  Hamilton  gave  so  much  of  his  in- 
tellectual strength  to  mere  acquisition.  There 
remained  for  the  independent  treatment  of  the 
problems  of  philosophy  only  a  fraction  of  Ham- 
ilton's time  and  strength.  The  ideal  of  the 
scholar  crowded  into  a  corner  the  ideal  of  the 
thinker.  And  here  the  remark  may  be  perti- 
nent that  hi  the  history  of  philosophy  only  two 
minds  of  the  first  order  have  been  scholars  in 
the  strict  sense  of  the  word.  These  two  are 
Aristotle  and  Hegel.  Plato,  Descartes,  Spinoza, 
Locke,  Leibnitz,  Berkeley,  Hume,  and  Kant  were 
educated  men,  with  free  access  to  the  previous 
intellectual  treasure  of  the  world ;  but  not  one 
of  them  was  a  high  technical  scholar,  not  one 
of  them  was,  properly  speaking,  a  learned  man. 
The  distinction  of  these  men  was  not  learning ; 
it  was  constructive  genius.  They  were  men  of 
original  insight,  makers  and  builders  in  the  world 
of  thought.  The  same  remark  is  of  nearly  equal 
application  to  the  makers  of  theology.  Origen 
and  Calvin  are  exceptions ;  they  were  great 
thinkers  and  great  scholars.  With  these  ex- 
ceptions, the  governing  thinkers  in  theology  were 


20      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

not  scholars ;  as  we  shall  see  later,  they  were 
preachers.  The  conclusion  that  the  ideal  of  the 
scholar  is  in  all  but  the  rarest  instances  inim- 
ical to  the  ideal  of  the  thinker  is,  therefore,  not 
so  audacious  as  at  first  sight  it  might  seem. 
General  mastery  of  the  world's  wisdom,  and 
valid  insight  into  the  meaning  of  one's  genera- 
tion and  its  movements  of  thought  and  life,  do 
not  make  one  a  scholar ;  they  are  possible  for 
the  preacher,  and  they  leave  him  free,  while 
they  enrich  and  direct  his  powers,  for  original 
work. 

The  call  for  the  first-hand  treatment  of  man's 
higher  needs,  and  of  God's  historic  response  to 
them,  is  of  great  moment.  The  pure  in  heart 
shall  see  God.  There  is  no  beatitude  more 
needed  than  this  for  the  preacher ;  and  to  reach 
it  no  other  man  has  an  equal  opportunity.  The 
work  of  making  sermons  in  the  intelligent  and 
reverent  service  of  life  has  this  for  its  issue,  — 
sometimes  its  far-off  issue,  always  its  delayed,  and 
yet  for  the  competent  its  sure  issue, —  the  steadier 
vision  of  divine  things.  The  intellectual  life  of 
a  competent  and  worthy  minister  puts  on  a  form 
of  its  own.  He  looks  at  the  moral  order  of  life, 
at  the  operation  of  human  nature  under  the 
light  and  by  the  power  of  the  gospel,  not 
through  the  learning  of  the  scholar,  not  through 
the  crowding  opinions  and  theories  of  other  men, 


IMMEDIATE  VISION  21 

but  with  his  own  intelligence.  However  well 
informed  he  may  be,  however  industrious  he 
may  be  to  share  more  widely  and  deeply  in  the 
best  wisdom  of  the  race,  his  perception  of  his 
subject  is  immediate.  His  intellectual  world 
may  be  far  less  elaborate  than  that  of  others, 
still  it  is  whole  and  his  vision  of  it  is  immediate 
and  abiding.  Here  is  an  advantage  with  many 
disadvantages ;  yet  it  is  an  advantage.  When 
we  have  said,  and  said  truly,  of  a  writer  that  he 
is  less  systematic,  less  learned,  less  mature  in  his 
thinking,  less  closely  reasoned  in  his  opinions 
than  we  could  wish,  than  we  can  find  in  another, 
we  cancel  all  these  defects  when  we  add  that 
in  his  utterance  we  discover  original  vision  of 
divine  things.  The  seer,  the  witness  of  God 
and  his  doings,  is  of  superlative  value  for  theo- 
logy ;  and  into  this  mood  of  beholding,  the  com- 
petent preacher  is  pressed  by  the  whole  strength 
of  his  vocation.  Among  the  worst  preachers 
that  have  ever  cursed  the  churches  have  been 
those  who  learned  a  system  of  theology  in  the 
seminary,  and  then  went  forth  to  preach  it, 
knowing  little  or  nothing  of  the  vast  moods  of 
insight  and  love  that  gave  to  the  theology  in 
question  whatever  note  of  reality  it  may  have 
possessed.  The  wreck  of  the  traditional  system 
of  theology  has  issued  in  this  infinite  boon :  it 
has  forced  the  preacher  into  the  supreme  privi- 


22      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

lege  of  his  vocation,  the  immediate  and  abiding 
vision  of  the  divine  world  in  man  and  in  man's 
history. 

The  preacher's  vocation  is  a  discipline  in 
things  essential  and  enduring.  The  permanent 
is  the  only  stuff  of  which  to  construct  a  theology. 
The  world  of  learning,  like  the  world  of  fashion, 
has  its  fads.  The  human .  heart  is  an  abiding 
reality,  and  the  God  who  answers  its  needs  is 
the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever.  It  is 
true  that  things  eternal  come  through  things 
temporal,  that  ideas  and  facts  go  together,  that 
the  actual  is  precious  because  it  carries  in  its 
heart  ideal  meanings,  that  history  is  the  great 
field  for  the  study  of  man  and  the  knowledge  of 
God.  It  is  likewise  true  that  there  are  things 
essential  and  things  accidental.  The  essential 
holds  in  itself  the  meaning  of  the  world  of  pass- 
ing detail,  as  the  abiding  tree  holds  the  secret 
of  its  leaves.  Facts  are  representative.  For 
the  purposes  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton  one  falling 
apple  is  as  good  as  a  million.  Seize  the  queen 
bee  and  you  control  the  swarm.  After  the  re- 
presentative fact  has  spoken,  the  rest  have  no- 
thing new  to  add.  They  can  but  confirm. 
There  were  twelve  apostles,  twelve  chosen  wit- 
nesses of  the  career  and  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ ; 
and  when  the  testimony  became  record  the  origi- 
nal number  was  reduced  to  three.  The  writings 


THE  VOCATION  OF  THE  SCHOLAR        23 

of  Peter  and  John  and  Paul  represent  apostolic 
Christianity  ;  the  silent  apostles  are  providen- 
tially silent.  Their  case  had  been  put  in  the 
best  way  before  the  world ;  they  did  not  care  to 
multiply  words  and  add  no  new  content  to  apos- 
tolic faith.  Research  is  the  vocation  of  the 
scholar,  and  no  sensible  man  will  cherish  for  it 
any  sentiment  other  than  honor.  The  scholar 
is  often,  as  in  the  study  of  antiquity,  the  restorer 
of  lost  worlds,  the  recoverer  of  a  vanished  hu- 
manity. There  are  few  things  more  affecting 
than  the  eagerness  with  which  the  literary  and 
monumental  remains  of  antiquity  are  sought  for, 
the  pious  care  with  which  they  are  collected,  and 
the  patient  humanity  by  which  through  these 
symbols  glimpses  are  obtained  into  the  life  of 
extinct  civilizations.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  gains  are  worth  the  pains.  The  single 
gain  in  an  extended  and  chastened  sense  of  hu- 
manity is  more  than  recompense  for  all  the  toil. 
And  yet  it  must  be  added  that  there  is  large 
waste  of  power  and  time  in  research.  Think  of 
the  vast  dust  heaps  of  opinion  that  the  scholar 
must  sift  for  the  sake  of  the  grain  of  gold  that 
may  be  in  them.  So  much  of  the  greatest  learn- 
ing is  of  baseless  opinion.  The  vocation  of  the 
scholar  is  necessarily  so  much  of  a  criminal  pro- 
cedure against  the  doings  of  knaves  and  fools. 
He  must  spend  so  much  strength  as  intellectual 


24      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

sheriff  in  running  down  and  in  executing  imme- 
morial errors.  And  while  the  scholar  is  thus 
engaged,  for  him  the  quarries  are  unworked,  and 
the  building  of  the  house  of  the  Lord  has  ceased. 
If  the  preacher  is  without  the  intellectual  spoils 
of  these  incursions  against  the  barbarians,  he  is 
secure  against  the  diversion  of  power.  "  I  have 
set  the  Lord  always  before  me  ;  because  he  is  at 
my  right  hand  I  shall  not  be  moved."  This  es- 
sential and  devouring  interest  is  the  life  of  the 
preacher.  For  high  and  serious  discourse  about 
God  and  his  world  there  is  surely  an  advantage 
here. 

The  perspective  of  the  preacher  is  on  the  whole 
the  sounder.  This  is  often  denied,  but  I  think 
without  good  reasons.  That  great  teacher  of  the- 
ology and  strangely  interesting  man,  Edwards 
A.  Park,  is  reported  to  have  said  to  his  students 
that  in  his  system,  which  he  naturally  regarded, 
and  not  without  weighty  reasons,  as  the  perfected 
Calvinistic  system,  there  were  many  doctrines 
that  could  not  be  preached.  I  suppose  that  he 
had  in  mind  the  doctrines  of  predestination,  elec- 
tion, inherited  depravity,  moral  inability,  and 
those  akin  to  them.  Whether  Professor  Park 
did  or  did  not  make  the  remark  attributed  to 
him,  it  is  still  true  of  every  variety  of  the  Cal- 
vinistic scheme.  Universal  determinism  to  all 
good  might  conceivably  enough  be  preached ; 


PERSPECTIVE  IN  THEOLOGY  25 

for  preaching  might  be  one  of  the  ways  of  bring- 
ing to  pass  this  universal  decree.  But  partial 
determinism  is  of  no  conceivable  use,  unless  the 
Infinite  himself  does  the  preaching.  For  only  he 
can  know  whom  he  has  predestinated  to  eternal 
life.  And  while  it  is  confessed  that  some  are 
not  predestinated  to  eternal  life,  this  confession 
must  fall  like  a  paralysis  upon  the  moral  en- 
deavor of  mankind.  Zeno,  Calvin,  Spinoza,  and 
all  other  thinkers  who  find  in  what  is  what  must 
be,  and  who  make  the  necessity  that  now  works 
for  the  elevation  of  men  and  again  for  their  de- 
basement the  original  and  controlling  principle 
of  their  scheme  of  the  universe,  are  far  away  from 
the  revelation  of  God  in  the  life  of  the  race. 
Again  let  it  be  said  that  the  trouble  is  not  with 
the  presence  of  a  sovereign  moral  necessity.  That 
might  be  an  infinite  inspiration  to  the  human 
soul.  The  difficulty  is  with  a  double,  or  a  partial, 
or  a  contradictory  necessity.  And  the  court 
of  final  appeal  is  not  the  needs  of  a  system  of 
thought,  but  the  profounder  needs  of  human  ex- 
istence. To  say  of  certain  doctrines  that  they 
cannot  be  preached  is  from  my  point  of  view  a 
complete  confession  of  their  worthlessness.  The 
saying  attributed  to  Professor  Park  reveals  the 
perspective  of  the  professional  theologian,  the 
man  of  system,  the  thinker  away  from  the  deter- 
mining influence  of  life.  A  genuine  preacher 


26      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

would  hardly  have  made  this  mistake ;  with  him 
the  primacy  of  life  is  an  established  fact.  What- 
ever in  the  intellect  is  without  meaning  for  man 
as  he  struggles  up  into  the  complete  realization 
of  his  humanity  is  not  even  the  shadow  of  truth. 
It  must  be  for  the  servant  of  life  a  baseless 
fiction.  The  real  is  everywhere  the  minister  to 
life ;  anything  without  which  man  can  attain  full 
manhood  falls  outside  the  circle  of  essential  truth. 
A  look  into  professional  theology  may  be  no  more 
disheartening  than  a  glance  into  the  pastoral  ver- 
sion of  the  same  thing.  Yet  against  the  profes- 
sional must  be  set  the  sin  of  jumbling  together 
fundamental  aspects  of  the  universe  and  super- 
ficial, the  essentials  of  faith  and  the  accidents  of 
human  culture.  For  the  genuine  preacher  life 
is  an  immense  purifier  of  faith.  In  the  service 
of  the  spirit  the  years  bring  the  philosophic  mind. 
The  non-essential  is  shed  like  the  morning  dew 
from  the  wings  of  the  bird.  The  creed  is  en- 
larged by  reduction ;  the  energy  of  belief,  like 
Gideon's  host,  is  increased  by  being  cut  down. 
The  really  great  things  stand  out  clear  and  high, 
and  the  mind  elects  to  study  them  and  to  allow 
the  rest  to  go.  True  perspective  takes  the  place 
of  conventional ;  where  MacGregor  sits,  there  is 
the  head  of  the  table.  The  priest  at  the  altar 
of  life  is  under  many  limitations,  yet  is  his  call- 
ing an  emancipation  from  superficial  interests 


BIBLICAL  THEOLOGY  27 

and  side  issues.  Other  things  being  equal,  he 
is  more  likely  than  other  men  to  carry  into  the 
work  of  the  thinker  a  sure  sense  of  the  just  gra- 
dation of  values  in  life  and  in  faith. 

in 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  if  there  is  any 
theology  in  the  Old  Testament  it  is  the  theology 
of  preachers.  Moral  theism  is  the  creation  of 
the  Hebrew  prophets.  And  the  immense  con- 
tribution to  a  true  conception  of  God  made  by 
Amos,  Hosea,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  and  the  prophet 
of  the  exile  is  a  contribution  from  non-profes- 
sional theologians.  If  the  more  we  search  the 
message  of  these  men  of  transcendent  spiritual 
genius  the  more  we  discover  its  incompleteness, 
at  the  same  time  it  must  be  added  that  their 
originality  is  beyond  doubt,  and  the  imperish- 
able residuum  of  their  thought  is  as  great  as 
it  is  precious.  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that 
the  supreme  mind  in  theology  is  the  mind  of  a 
preacher.  Jesus  Christ  was  a  preacher.  His 
discourse  was  ever  about  God ;  all  human  inter- 
ests were  lifted  in  his  treatment  of  them  into  the 
presence  of  God.  In  a  manner  that  for  origi- 
nality, simplicity,  depth,  and  beauty  is  unap- 
proachable he  spoke  the  amazing  content  of  his 
mind  upon  the  meanings  of  human  existence 
read  in  the  light  of  the  Infinite  love.  The  syin- 


28      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

1  >:it  hies  of  Jesus  are  so  divine,  the  tenderness  and 
majesty  of  his  character  are  so  absorbing,  that 
men  neglect  the  mind  that  shines  in  the  frag- 
ments of  his  teaching  that  remain.  Whose  lec- 
tures or  sermons  could  bear  the  condensation  to 
which  the  teaching  of  Jesus  is  subjected  ?  What 
historic  thinker  would  live  as  a  thinker  were  only 
about  fifty  pages  allowed  for  the  expression  of 
his  thought,  were  he  compelled  to  crowd  into 
a  pamphlet,  in  the  form  of  a  report,  the  entire 
order  of  his  ideas?  And  under  limitations  which 
would  prove  fatal  to  any  other  great  mind  in 
history,  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  as  it  appears,  for 
example,  in  the  concluding  chapter  of  Wendt's 
book,  is  of  the  utmost  impressiveness.  What 
Wendt  calls  the  "grand  inner  unity,"  the 
"unswerving  consistency,"  in  contrast,  for  ex- 
ample, with  that  of  Augustine  and  Luther,  the 
"  purely  religious  "  and  the  perfectly  "  moral  " 
nature  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  and  its  complete 
representation  in  his  own  spirit  are  undeniable. 
From  the  position,  not  of  discipleship,  but  of 
the  scholar,  Wendt  adds  that  when  viewed  as  a 
great  system  of  thought  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
"  is  on  a  par  with  the  most  complete  philosoph- 
ical and  religious  systems  of  thought  which  have 
been  founded  by  men."1  This  reminds  one 
of  John  Stuart  Mill's  famous  judgment  about 
1  Wendt,  voL  iL  p.  393. 


JESUS  AND  PAUL  29 

Jesus :  "  But  about  the  life  and  sayings  of  Jesus 
there  is  a  stamp  of  personal  originality  combined 
with  profundity  of  insight,  which,  if  we  abandon 
the  idle  expectation  of  finding  scientific  precision 
where  something  very  different  was  aimed  at, 
must  place  the  Prophet  of  Nazareth,  even  in  the 
estimation  of  those  who  have  no  belief  in  his  in- 
spiration, in  the  very  first  rank  of  the  men  of 
sublime  genius  of  whom  our  species  can  boast."  l 
These  judgments  about  Jesus  fall  far  short  of 
the  judgment  of  faith  concerning  him.  Still 
it  would  be  well  for  theology  not  to  forget  what 
Mill  calls  the  "  preeminent  genius "  of  Jesus. 
If  theology  is  discourse  about  God  and  divine 
things,  the  teaching  of  the  sovereign  preacher 
is  the  sovereign  theology. 

Many  books  have  been  written  on  the  theology 
of  Paul.  His  teaching  is  worthy  of  the  devotion 
that  it  has  received  from  scholars.  Its  strength 
lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  a  discovery  of  the 
meaning  of  human  experience  apart  from  Christ 
and  as  his  happy  disciple.  The  moral  idea  was 
from  youth  the  sovereign  reality  in  Paul's  life. 
Judaism  stood  condemned  because  there  was  no- 
thing in  it  to  lift  Paul  into  peace  with  his  ideal. 
Christianity  was  the  final  religion.  Jesus  was 
the  Lord  of  men,  because  in  Jesus  and  in  his 
teaching  Paul  found  strength,  wings  rather,  to 

1  Essays  on  Religion,  p.  234. 


30      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

fly  in  the  fiery  path  of  his  ideal,  as  in  the  glow 
of  the  retreating  sun.  Paul's  theology  is  the 
theology  of  an  educated  mind ;  it  is  the  issue 
of  profound  and  passionate  thinking ;  and  in  his 
letters  it  receives  anything  but  careless  expres- 
sion. Still  the  theology  of  this  apostle  is  the 
theology  of  a  preacher.  Its  origin  in  experience, 
its  attempt  to  set  forth  the  meaning  of  experi- 
ence, human  and  Christian,  its  purpose  as  the 
servant  of  life,  the  freedom  and  simplicity  of  its 
method,  its  essence  as  religion  filled  with  insight, 
penetrated  with  thought,  consubstantiated  with 
reason,  attest  its  source.  It  is  the  theology  of 
one  of  the  greatest  preachers.  If  one  shall  con- 
sider method,  and  method  alone,  there  could 
hardly  be  a  greater  blunder  than  the  judgment 
that  described  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
as  the  theologian.  But  if  we  consider  him  a 
theologian  who  in  a  large  and  noble  way  views 
all  life  in  the  light  of  the  Eternal,  then  surely 
the  writer  who  dates  the  career  of  Jesus  from 
the  mind  of  God,  who  recites  the  leading  events 
of  his  ministry  as  of  unique  significance  as  mani- 
festations of  God,  and  who  in  thus  regarding  the 
history  of  Jesus  gathers  up  into  it  the  history  of 
mankind,  must  be  looked  upon  as  the  typical 
theologian.  The  conclusion  reached  from  a  sur- 
vey of  the  Old  Testament  and  of  the  New  is 
that  if  there  is  in  these  sacred  books  anything 


PATRISTIC  THEOLOGY  31 

deserving  to  be  called  theology,  that  theology  is 
undeniably  the  theology  of  preachers. 

It  is  not  without  interest  to  observe  that 
whether  for  good  or  evil  the  dominating  minds 
in  the  theology  of  the  church,  with  a  few  notable 
exceptions,  have  been  the  minds  of  preachers. 
It  would  be  absurd  to  say  that  all  great  preach- 
ers have  been  theologians.  It  would  not  be  wide 
of  the  mark  to  say  that  by  far  the  larger  num- 
ber of  the  great  historic  theologians  have  been 
preachers.  Clement,  and  especially  Origen,  are 
professional  scholars  and  thinkers ;  Athanasius 
was  a  thinker  and  an  administrator.  It  may  be 
said  that  the  fundamental  excellence  of  Greek 
theology  is  owing  in  some  measure  to  the  fact 
that  it  was  elaborated  by  competent  scholars  and 
trained  thinkers.  It  may  be  further  contended 
that  if  Augustine  had  been  more  of  a  scholar 
and  less  of  a  preacher  his  theology  would  have 
been  of  a  higher  type.  Augustine  was  a  preacher, 
and  his  theology  had  the  great  merit  of  being  a 
generalization  from  experience.  Augustine  was 
a  typical  nature.  He  represented  in  his  experi- 
ence the  dominating  notes  in  the  experience  of 
Europe  for  more  than  a  thousand  years.  Here 
is  the  source  of  the  vast  vitality  of  his  theology. 
He  stood  near  to  men  in  their  distress  and  in 
.their  hope.  His  faults  are  owing  less  to  want 
of  scholarship,  and  much  more  to  the  abnormal 


32      THE  PEEACHER  AS  A   THEOLOGIAN 

excesses  and  sorrows  of  the  human  experience 
from  which  he  generalized.  His  method  is  on 
the  whole  sound,  and  the  instinct  that  guides 
Augustine  the  theologian  is  the  feeling  of  Au- 
gustine the  preacher. 

Among  the  reformers  Melancthon  is  the  pure 
scholar,  and  his  vocation  is  one  of  light,  if  not 
always  one  of  peace.  Luther  is  many  things, 
but  in  them  all  he  is  supremely  the  preacher. 
Calvin  is  a  scholar  and  professional  thinker;  yet 
in  the  "Institutes"  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel 
the  passion  of  the  preacher.  Zwingli  is  a  man 
of  action,  and  his  share  in  the  social  concerns  of 
his  people  and  in  their  political  struggles  tells 
for  good  upon  his  attitude  as  a  theologian.  In 
England  the  leading  minds  in  theology  from 
Wiclif  to  Maurice  have  been  the  minds  of 
preachers.  Scotland  has  never  had  a  profes- 
sional theologian  in  the  sense  in  which  she  has 
had  professional  philosophers.  This  is  not  said 
to  her  credit ;  for  the  absence  of  the  pure  thinker 
is  a  grievous  limitation.  Such  theologians  as 
she  has  had  have  been  of  the  preacher  type, — 
Samuel  Rutherford,  Thomas  Chalmers,  Thomas 
Erskine,  McLeod  Campbell. 

In  New  England,  the  nursing  mother  of  great 
theologians,  the  same  type  has  been  the  prevail- 
ing type.  The  founder  of  New  England  divinity 
was  a  man  bred  to  the  vocation  of  the  preacher. 


NEW  ENGLAND  THEOLOGY  33 

Again  the  influence  of  the  preacher  is  seen  in 
the  best  work  of  the  theologian.  In  his  great 
work  on  "  Religious  Affections  "  Edwards  is  ex- 
ploring the  experimental  sources  of  theology  to 
which  he  had  been  led  as  a  preacher.  It  should 
be  noted  that  our  American  theology  originated 
in  the  mind  of  one  of  our  preachers.  Hop- 
kins, Emmons,  Channing,  Parker,  Bushnell,  and 
many  influential  thinkers  of  lower  rank  than 
those  named,  were  non-professional  theologians. 
Nathaniel  Taylor  and  Edwards  A.  Park  are 
among  the  first  of  our  New  England  profes- 
sional theologians.  They  did  very  great  ser- 
vice to  the  cause  of  Christian  faith,  and  they 
have  been  followed  by  worthy  successors.  Yet 
even  in  the  two  great  teachers  just  named  the 
preacher  never  died ;  even  in  the  most  technical 
and  elaborate  of  our  divines  the  influence  of  the 
preacher's  calling  was  potent  and  lasting. 

Two  men,  both  preachers,  have  had  a  very 
wide  influence  on  theology  in  this  country. 
Channing  was  a  preacher,  and  his  doctrine  of 
man,  his  anthropology,  has  had  through  his 
teaching  and  through  the  men  whom  he  inspired 
an  immense  influence.  It  has  been  a  precious 
influence.  It  has  held  on  its  way  because  it 
was  truth,  and  because  no  weapon  formed 
against  it  has  been  able  to  prosper.  Channing's 
doctrine  of  man,  his  prevailing  teaching  about 


34      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

man,  is  the  teaching  of  Jesus  ;  to  Channing 
more  than  to  any  other  single  influence  we  are 
indebted  for  the  revival  of  the  New  Testament 
interpretation  of  human  nature.  And  on  the 
same  level  as  a  popular  theologian  must  be 
placed  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  He  did  more 
than  any  other  teacher  to  break  up  and  abolish 
the  Calvinistic  Moloch.  He  pled  for  the  Infi- 
nite Father  of  mankind  when  all  the  seminaries 
of  the  land,  with  their  prestige,  their  learning, 
their  opportunity  and  power,  were  putting  first 
God  the  Sovereign,  God  the  Moral  Governor  of 
the  world.  It  was  an  immense  battle,  like  that 
of  David  and  a  host  of  Goliaths.  Men  in  mid- 
dle life  will  recall  the  opinion  industriously  dis- 
seminated, that  Beecher  was  no  theologian.  It 
was  said  that  the  great  preacher  was  neither  a 
scholar  nor  a  consistent  thinker.  The  indict- 
ment drawn  by  a  whole  generation  of  scholars 
and  teachers  seemed  strong  enough  to  send  the 
great  commoner  into  speedy  and  everlasting  ob- 
livion. Contrary  to  all  expectation  the  profes- 
sionals failed.  As  in  the  case  of  the  shepherd 
lad  in  the  day  of  battle,  the  simple  apparatus  of 
the  preacher,  the  sling  and  the  five  smooth 
stones  from  the  brook,  the  insight  and  passion 
and  eloquence  of  Beecher  the  great  pulpit  hu- 
manist of  his  time,  backed  by  the  sympathy  of 
the  Lord  of  Hosts,  prevailed.  Greater  influence 


BELIEF  WITHIN  BELIEF  35 

upon  the  religious  belief  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  has  been  exerted  by  none  than 
by  William  Ellery  Channing  and  Henry  Ward 
Beecher.  Both  are  examples  of  the  good  work 
which  the  non-professional  theologian  may  do 
for  his  generation. 

IV 

Whatever  doubts  may  exist  concerning  the 
preacher  as  a  source  of  theological  ideas,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  his  calling  gives  him  an 
unequaled  opportunity  for  testing  theological 
ideas.  Under  the  process  of  genuine  preaching 
there  sometimes  issues  a  scheme  within  the 
scheme  of  general  belief.  Dr.  Chalmers  of  Scot- 
land was  for  many  years  a  teacher  of  the  Calvin- 
istic  divinity.  Yet  as  a  great  preacher  there  was 
generated  within  him  a  vital  faith  to  which  his 
theology  could  not  do  justice.  The  passage  of 
poetry  which  was  oftenest  upon  his  lips  is  the 
utterance,  not  of  Chalmers  the  theologian,  but  of 
Chalmers  the  preacher  :  — 

"  The  man 

That  could  surround  the  sum  of  things,  and  spy 
The  heart  of  God  and  secrets  of  his  empire 
Would  speak  but  love.     With  love  the  bright  result 
Would  change  the  hue  of  intermediate  things, 
And  make  one  of  all  theology."  1 

The  contradiction  of  the  general  traditional 

1  Hanna,  Life  of  Chalmers,  vol.  iii.  p.  206. 


36      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

scheme  of  divinity  has  been  inevitable  under 
the  process  of  large  and  loving  service  to  men. 
Preachers  who  have  continued  to  rank  them- 
selves in  the  school  of  Calvin  have  done  so  with  an 
increasing  accumulation  of  mental  reservations. 
The  divine  thing  was  the  gospel  of  Christ,  their 
sense  of  its  infinitude,  their  service  in  its  power 
to  the  permanent  and  noble  need  of  men.  The 
authority  of  the  traditional  divinity  became  sec- 
ondary to  that  of  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  lif  e  in 
Christ.  Toward  the  end  of  life,  in  the  case  of 
many  eminent  preachers,  it  became  a  deposed 
authority.  The  scheme  was  overwhelmed  in  the 
presence  of  the  fact  of  which  it  professed  to  be 
the  account.  The  intellectual  element  in  faith 
sank  into  insignificance  when  compared  with  the 
rich  and  vast  possession  of  the  heart.  This 
quiet  surrender  to  silence  of  bodies  of  divinity 
found  incommensurate  with  the  light  and  the 
love  generated  in  the  heart  of  the  preacher  is 
a  large  and  a  significant  phenomenon. 

In  a  vast  number  the  contradiction  between 
the  ideals  and  the  best  life  of  the  spirit  and  the 
traditional  divinity  led  to  a  revolt  from  all  the- 
ology. The  time  had  not  come  for  a  new  phi- 
losophy of  the  Christian  life  and  faith.  Mean- 
while the  accepted  system  of  belief  was  found 
worthless,  and  the  preachers  of  whom  I  am 
now  thinking  abandoned  theology  for  literature. 


A  SUBSTITUTE  FOR   THEOLOGY          37 

They  read  the  Bible  as  the  literature  of  the 
spirit ;  they  read  the  great  literatures  of  the  race. 
They  found  in  this  field  a  world  of  noble  ideas. 
These  ideas  were  fresh  from  the  heart  of  hu- 
manity, and  they  stood  expressed  in  monumental 
power.  The  "Odyssey"  was  preferred  to  the 
"  Institutes  "  of  Calvin  or  the  "  Systematic  The- 
ology "  of  Hodge ;  the  crimes  of  a  wanton  and 
fascinating  goddess  as  set  forth  by  the  poet  were 
less  revolting  than  the  awful  disregard  of  his  crea- 
tures ascribed  to  the  Creator  by  the  theologian ; 
while  in  the  bald  and  questionable  propositions 
of  the  traditional  divinity  there  was  nothing  to 
match  the  sweet  and  stainless  humanity  of  a 
Nausicaa,  or  the  invincible  loyalty  of  a  Penel- 
ope, or  the  high  domestic  honor  of  an  Odysseus. 
Here  was  a  chance  to  see  the  pathos  and  the 
grandeur  of  man.  A  glorious  creature  like  the 
Antigone  of  Sophocles  had,  for  this  class  of 
preachers,  more  true  theology  in  her  being,  and 
more  of  the  essential  truth  about  human  nature, 
than  the  entire  extant  divinity  of  the  church. 
There  was,  doubtless,  a  good  deal  of  exagger- 
ation in  the  mental  estimates  of  these  rebel 
preachers.  They  stand,  nevertheless,  for  a 
wholesome  movement.  They  were  unable  to 
accept  the  old  scheme,  and  they  were  unable 
to  construct  a  new  and  a  better  scheme ;  they 
abandoned,  therefore,  all  schemes  ;  they  went 


38      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

straight  to  life,  and  to  life's  great  and  free  ex- 
pression in  literature. 

Under  the  process  of  genuine  preaching  there 
has  resulted  a  vast  purification  of  the  scheme  of 
belief.  There  have  been  in  the  ministry  men 
who  could  not  work  with  a  contradiction  in  their 
heart,  and  who  could  not  give  up  the  hope  of 
a  philosophy  of  the  religious  life.  These  men 
have  driven  out  false  doctrine  by  the  power  of 
life.  Election,  not  in  the  sense  of  the  choice  of 
the  eminent  person  as  the  servant  of  all,  like 
Moses  for  Israel,  like  Jesus  for  mankind,  but 
election  as  the  selection  of  some  and  the  rejec- 
tion of  others,  seemed  to  the  preachers  now  re- 
ferred to,  an  incredible  belief.  All  the  texts  in 
the  Bible  could  not  prove  this  doctrine  compat- 
ible with  Infinite  justice  against  the  verdict  of 
the  human  conscience.  They  felt  that  this  was 
an  immoral  doctrine.  It  must  be  distinctly  re- 
jected as  unpreachable  and  incredible.  It  was 
unpreachable  for  many  reasons,  but  for  this  one 
reason  above  all  others,  that  whenever  a  doc- 
trine forces  itself  upon  man  against  the  clear 
protest  of  his  conscience,  that  doctrine  is  worse 
than  useless.  To  continue  to  teach  it  is  to 
endeavor  to  break  down  the  moral  nature  of 
man,  and  ultimately  to  make  faith  in  the  moral 
character  of  God  impossible.  The  doctrine  is 
incredible  because  it  professes  to  embody  the 


HUMAN  DEPRAVITY  39 

disposition  toward  man  of  the  Eternal  justice. 
It  has  been  abolished  by  the  preacher. 

The  doctrine  of  human  depravity  has  gone  in 
the  same  way.  The  doctrine  was  unjust  to  life 
as  a  whole.  There  are  men,  no  doubt,  who 
illustrate  that  doctrine  with  appalling  fullness 
and  success.  Wickedness  is  one  of  the  intense 
and  awful  facts  of  human  history.  Selfishness 
is  one  of  the  persistent  and  terrible  forces  in 
human  society.  But  an  indictment  justified  by 
exceptional  cases  must  not  be  drawn  against 
mankind.  Nor  can  we  justly  present  as  a  full 
account  of  human  nature  the  base  side  only. 
The  image  of  God  remains  uneffaced  even  in 
the  basest  human  existence,  and  in  the  most  ex- 
alted career  there  is  the  constant  pressure  of  the 
animal.  There  is  no  such  hard  and  fast  distinc- 
tion in  life  between  the  converted  and  the  un- 
converted as  exists  in  the  traditional  theology. 
Here  is  the  imperfect  life  bravely  pursuing  a 
glorious  ideal ;  there  is  the  far  more  imperfect 
life  that  is  practically  without  a  moral  ideal. 
This  nature  is  not  depraved.  It  is  full  of 
weakness,  and  at  the  same  time  it  is  full  of 
instinctive  worth.  And  this  description  holds 
over  the  larger  number  of  human  beings.  The 
image  of  God  is  in  partnership  with  the  brute  in 
all,  and  the  great  question  is  as  to  which  of  the 
two  is  the  head  of  the  firm.  A  doctrine  of  man 


40      THE  PREACHER  A8  A  THEOLOGIAN 

generalized  from  exceptional  instances  of  human 
baseness ;  supported  by  the  animal  in  man  and 
ignoring  the  divine  in  man ;  ignoring,  too,  the 
indissoluble  connection,  given  in  the  image  of 
God  in  the  soul,  between  the  Eternal  Father 
and  his  children  in  time,  has  been  eliminated 
from  the  preacher's  scheme  because  it  was  found 
untrue  to  the  facts. 

The  doctrine  of  the  atonement  has  undergone 
transformation  at  the  hands  of  preachers.  The 
simple  basis  of  peace  between  the  Infinite  con- 
science and  the  dark  and  sinful  conscience  of  man 
is  revealed  once  for  all,  with  noonday  clearness, 
in  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  That  ground  of  peace 
is  the  love  of  God,  of  whom  Jesus  in  his  life 
and  in  his  death  is  the  sovereign  assurance.  The 
career  of  Jesus,  the  death  of  Jesus,  is  sacrificial 
because  it  is  ruled  by  love  ;  and  this  career  con- 
summated in  death  reveals  the  Father  who  makes 
it  possible,  who  lives  in  it,  who  finds  in  it  the 
perfect  human  expression  of  the  eternal  sacri- 
fice in  his  nature.  This  atonement  through  love, 
this  reconciliation  by  the  almightiness  of  charac- 
ter, the  character  of  God  revealed  in  the  char- 
acter of  Jesus,  this  proclamation  of  peace  in  the 
name  and  in  the  strength  of  the  moral  universe, 
and  the  eternal  Personal  tenderness  in  which  the 
moral  universe  is  centred,  is  true  to  the  heart  of 
the  gospel,  and  it  is  true  to  the  heart  of  human 


CONCEPTION  AND  SYMBOL  41 

life.     It  is  an  atonement  in  fundamental  reality, 
and  it  is  one  of  infinite  moral  sublimity. 

This  simple  law  of  peace  and  hope  in  Christ 
Jesus  was  viewed  in  a  priestly  manner  by  the 
apostles.  There  was  no  other  way  of  getting  its 
meaning  into  the  mind  of  a  people  in  bondage  to 
the  temple  and  the  priesthood.  There  was  no 
other  way  of  interpreting  it  to  the  nations  with 
whom  sacrifice  was  a  constant  element  in  re- 
ligion. The  altar  imagery  was  the  most  effective 
for  the  apostolic  audience.  And  no  one  can 
read  critically  apostolic  literature  without  feeling 
the  danger  besetting  this  idiom  of  the  priest, 
without  observing  the  constant  effort  to  cancel 
this  danger.  The  great  letter  to  the  Hebrews 
is  the  strongest  illustration  of  both  points.  It 
employs  in  the  largest  way  the  priestly  terms 
and  customs  for  the  interpretation  of  Christ  and 
his  gospel.  It  supersedes  the  whole  tradition 
and  custom  of  the  priest  in  the  endless  spirit- 
ual priesthood  of  Christ.  In  reading  this  great 
composition  one  sees  that  the  writer  uses  the 
idiom  of  the  priest  as  a  convenient  symbol  and 
no  more ;  just  as  Spenser  in  his  "  Faerie  Queene  " 
uses  the  world  of  chivalry  as  a  symbol  for  his 
moral  ideals.  For  Paul,  John,  and  the  author 
of  Hebrews,  the  priestly  practice  of  Hebraism  is 
a  symbol  of  the  power  and  process  of  the  Eternal 
Spirit  in  Jesus,  —  a  symbol,  nothing  more. 


42      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

It  became  a  doctrine  for  the  church,  and  it 
has  assumed  in  the  course  of  history  a  variety  of 
forms,  each  a  little  less  objectionable  than  its 
predecessor.  The  death  of  Christ  came  to  be 
regarded  as  a  debt  paid  to  Satan  for  the  recovery 
of  mankind.  In  consequence  of  Adam's  fall, 
involving  as  it  did  mankind,  Satan  acquired  pos- 
session of  the  race.  The  race  could  be  delivered 
only  by  an  offering  to  Satan ;  that  offering  was 
the  death  of  Christ.  This  curious  conception  is 
evidently  the  product,  not  of  the  enlightenment, 
but  of  the  superstition  of  the  age.  It  could  not 
remain;  it  must  pass  away.  Then  came  the 
Anselmic  conception,  the  conception  of  sin  as  an 
infinite  affront  to  God,  an  affront  which  could  be 
atoned  for  only  by  the  death  of  an  Infinite  being 
of  perfect  holiness.  For  this  purpose  God  be- 
came man.  This  conception,  which  lifted  into 
infinite  relations  the  whole  temporal  existence  of 
man,  and  which  put  upon  the  career  of  Jesus  an 
interpretation  so  sublime,  took  deep  hold  upon  the 
imagination.  And  yet  it  could  not  always  pre- 
vail. It  made  human  weakness  responsible  for 
infinite  guilt ;  it  arraigned  the  character  of  God 
in  thus  regarding  man ;  and  it  placed  its  confi- 
dence in  an  artificial  scheme  of  reconciliation, 
and  not  in  the  fundamental  order  of  justice  and 
love.  As  the  moral  consciousness  grew  in  sim- 
plicity and  strength,  the  Anselmic  conception 


INFLUENCE  OF  BUSHNELL  43 

passed  away.  Then  came,  among  other  ideas, 
the  governmental  theory  of  reconciliation.  God 
is  a  lawgiver.  Man  as  sinner  has  insulted  the 
majesty  of  the  law.  He  cannot  be  forgiven 
until  satisfaction  has  been  made  to  the  injured 
majesty  of  moral  law.  Christ  alone  could  make 
this  satisfaction,  and  his  death  is  this  satisfac- 
tion. This  view  has  played  a  large  part  in  the 
religious  life  of  New  England  since  the  days  of 
the  younger  Edwards.  It  is  one  of  the  least 
real,  least  credible,  of  the  various  conceptions  of 
atonement.  It  has  little  relation  to  the  moral 
experience  of  man ;  it  is  a  doctrine  developed 
from  analogy.  It  makes  the  enormous  assump- 
tion that  civil  law  and  civil  administration  are 
the  analogies  of  the  divine  law,  the  divine  ad- 
ministration. It  was  elaborated  with  great  full- 
ness and  ingenuity ;  it  was  defended  by  expert 
logicians.  But  it  could  not  last.  It  was  of  no 
use  except  in  pathological  cases ;  it  was  an  es- 
sentially unpreachable  doctrine.  The  profound 
moral  experience  of  Bushnell,  his  genius  for  the 
soul  of  Christianity,  and  his  obedience  to  the 
heavenly  vision  at  first  checked  the  sway  of  the 
governmental  view,  then  drove  it  back  upon  its 
scholastic  strongholds,  and  finally  shut  it  up  there 
to  starve  to  death.  Bushnell  the  preacher,  and 
the  host  of  preachers  whom  he  has  inspired,  have 
given  another  great  example  of  the  purification 


44      THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

of  doctrine  under  the  process  of  genuine  preach- 
ing. 

The  doctrine  of  retribution  is  of  infinite  mo- 
ment to  faith  because  it  is  of  infinite  moment 
to  life.  That  doctrine  has  been  content  to  wear 
for  more  than  fifteen  centuries  the  form  of  an 
Inferno.  This  reign  of  terror  is  approaching  its 
end,  and  still  it  is  true  that  whatsoever  a  man 
soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap.  The  conception 
of  retribution  purified  in  the  Christian  conscience 
is  alive  with  awful  and  elemental  power.  It  is 
the  work  of  this  generation  of  preachers  to  show 
the  punitive  process  of  God  in  the  moral  life 
of  man,  to  show  that  hope  for  man  is  sound  be- 
cause God  is  a  punitive  process  in  the  courses  of 
human  existence,  that  optimism  builds  its  foun- 
dations upon  the  prevailing  strength  of  the  mo- 
tives to  goodness  which  God  is  generating  in  the 
tormented  humanity  of  sinful  souls.  It  is  for 
this  generation  of  preachers  to  scorn  the  poor 
refuge  of  annihilation  in  their  flight  from  an 
eternal  hell,  and  to  ground  their  message  to  man 
in  the  relentless  rigor  and  .redeeming  strength  of 
the  conscience  of  God  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

In  addition  to  this  process  of  doctrinal  puri- 
fication under  the  genuine  preacher,  there  is  the 
yet  vaster  process  of  verification  conducted  by 
preachers.  There  was  a  time  when  science  was 
learned  from  books.  That  time  is  gone.  To- 


FAITH  AND  EXPERIENCE  45 

day  science  is  taught  in  the  fields  of  nature ; 
scientific  theories  are  brought  to  the  test  of  the 
living  process  of  nature.  The  biological,  the 
chemical,  the  physical,  the  physiological,  the 
psychological  conceptions  that  are  to  remain 
as  valid  must  find  verification  in  the  order  of 
nature.  Science  is  the  progressive  refutation 
of  one  set  of  conceptions,  the  progressive  verifi- 
cation and  the  final  demonstration  of  another 
set  of  conceptions.  The  scientific  process  is 
gradually  clearing  the  human  mind  of  fictions 
concerning  nature.  It  is  steadily  adding  to  the 
sum  of  attested  truths.  We  go  to  life  with  our 
scheme  of  belief.  Our  scheme  of  belief  is  for 
the  sake  of  life.  It  is  purified  and  exalted  as 
a  philosophy  under  the  influence  of  life ;  and 
as  a  provisionally  adequate  scheme  it  seeks  veri- 
fication in  the  life  of  men  and  nations.  It  is  a 
faith  while  it  waits  for  complete  attestation.  It 
is  an  assumption  while  it  is  wanting  in  full  veri- 
fication. It  is  an  order  of  conceptions  while 
untranslated  into  the  process  of  living,  while  un- 
accepted and  unapproved  by  that  process.  The 
preacher  superintends  this  vast  field  of  interest. 
His  vocation  is  to  press  the  faith  to  complete 
attestation,  to  urge  the  assumption  into  full 
verification,  to  conduct  an  order  of  ideas  into 
the  process  of  living,  and  to  show  this  order  of 
ideas  thus  accepted  and  approved  as  the  eternal 


46       THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

truth.  Professor  James  says  in  his  richly  re- 
warding and  yet  somewhat  disappointing  "  Vari- 
eties of  Religious  Experience  "  :  "  I  do  not  see 
why  a  critical  Science  of  Religions  of  this  sort 
might  not  eventually  command  as  general  a  pub- 
lic adhesion  as  is  commanded  by  physical  science. 
Even  the  personally  non-religious  might  accept 
its  conclusions  on  trust,  much  as  blind  persons 
now  accept  the  facts  of  optics  —  it  might  appear 
as  foolish  to  refuse  them.  Yet  as  the  science 
of  optics  has  to  be  fed  in  the  first  instance,  and 
continually  verified  later,  by  facts  experienced 
by  seeing  persons,  so  the  science  of  religions 
would  depend  for  its  original  material  on  facts 
of  personal  experience,  and  would  have  to  square 
itself  with  personal  experiences  through  all  its 
critical  reconstructions.  It  could  never  get  away 
from  concrete  life,  or  work  in  a  conceptual 
vacuum." 1  These  words  express  exactly  the 
vocation  of  the  preacher.  He  is  testing  ideas 
in  the  living  process  and  laying  to  heart  the  re- 
sult. He  brings  to  the  field  of  existence  an  order 
of  ideas,  and  he  watches  the  verdict  of  fidelity 
to  these  ideas  in  the  conduct  of  life.  It  is  the 
vision  of  this  process  and  the  observation  of  its 
results  that  give  the  preacher  confidence  in  the 
truth  of  his  philosophy  of  human  existence,  that 
make  him  regret  the  meagre  issues  to  which 
Professor  James  leads  in  a  book  abounding  in 
i  P.  456. 


REGULATIVE  EXPERIENCE  47 

rare  insight  and  paragraphs  of  classic  fidelity 
to  the  life  of  the  religious  man.  We  may  hope 
for  an  order  of  ideas  concerning  religion  as  the 
result  of  the  study  of  religious  experience ;  so 
far  we  thank  Professor  James,  and  we  agree  with 
him.  We  take  the  ideas  that  have  risen  out 
of  the  supreme  religious  experience,  the  ideas  of 
Jesus  as  delivered  to  him  by  his  experience ; 
and  we  may  hope  that  these  ideas  may  find  full 
verification  in  the  increasing  and  ascending  ex- 
perience of  man.  All  experience  is  not  of  equal 
value  even  in  religion ;  Professor  James  is  too 
broad.  The  ideal  religious  experience  sets  free 
the  latent  capacity  of  the  average  man.  Work- 
ing upon  him  and  upon  his  fellows,  we  may  hope 
for  the  verdict  of  life  in  behalf  of  the  great  ideas 
of  faith.  We  come  to  life  with  a  faith  ;  we  may 
receive  from  it  vision. 

V 

A  better  definition  of  the  function  of  the 
preacher  could  hardly  be  given  than  that  con- 
tained in  the  phrase  of  Matthew  Arnold,  "  the 
application  of  noble  ideas  to  life."  The  sphere 
in  which  the  preacher  should  move  is  at  the  in- 
tersection of  ideas  and  life.  In  this  view  of  the 
function  of  preaching,  the  vocation  is  an  inclu- 
sive one.  I  have  met  few  able  and  earnest  men 
who  were  not  preachers  according  to  this  defini- 
tion. Preachers  abound  in  science,  in  art,  in 


48       THE  PREACHER  AS  A  THEOLOGIAN 

literature,  in  economics,  in  political  and  in  philo- 
sophical subjects  in  our  time  because  it  is  a  time 
of  faith  and  moral  earnestness.  The  vocation 
of  the  preacher  is  honored  to-day  hi  a  manner 
unusual,  and  to  an  extent  unknown  to  other  gen- 
erations. The  belief  is  nearly  universal  among 
us  that  human  life  is  amenable  to  ideas,  that  in 
the  government  of  life  by  noble  ideas  is  the  only 
hope  of  mankind.  No  contempt  for  the  preacher 
of  the  gospel  as  a  mere  exhorter  should  discour- 
age him  when  he  sees  his  vocation  fast  becoming 
the  vocation  of  the  scholar,  when  he  looks  upon 
the  distinction  with  which  it  is  crowned. 

If  the  function  of  the  preacher  be  the  appli- 
cation of  noble  ideas  to  life,  need  he  be  wholly 
confined  to  the  application  ?  Should  there  not 
be  a  study  of  life  in  order  to  ascertain  its  needs  ? 
Should  there  not  be  a  comparison  of  ideas  in  order 
to  discover  which  are  the  noble  ones  ?  Doubt- 
less the  peculiar  gift  of  the  genuine  preacher 
is  in  fitting  truth  to  life,  and  not  in  adjusting 
idea  to  idea.  This,  however,  does  not  exhaust 
his  calling.  The  preacher  should  seek  not  only 
for  ideas,  but  also  for  a  comprehensive  order  of 
ideas,  for  a  theology.  His  interest  in  ideas 
because  of  their  bearing  on  life  should  help  him 
as  a  thinker,  as  an  explorer  among  ideas,  as 
a  purifier  and  an  adjuster  of  ideas.  The  navi- 
gator is  not  an  astronomer ;  his  first  concern  is  to 


THE  INTELLECT  AND  THE  HEART      49 

sail  by  the  heavens,  not  to  make  a  map  of  them ; 
yet  the  interest  which  the  navigator  takes  in  the 
stars  can  be  no  barrier  in  the  way  toward  shar- 
ing in  the  vision  of  the  astronomer.  The  ideas 
that  gather  about  life  to  serve  it,  that  plead  for 
and  secure  the  sovereignty  of  the  good  will,  that 
keep  men  strong  and  pure  and  tender  in  the 
great  process  of  existence,  gain  in  power  thereby 
over  the  mind  of  the  student.  If  one  could  go 
deep  enough,  one  would  discover  that  the  inter- 
est of  the  remotest  reach  of  the  intellect  is  a 
human  interest.  The  real  things,  TO.  ovra,  of  the 
metaphysician  are  as  full  of  humanity  to  him  as 
the  foundations  of  the  house  that  he  is  about  to 
build  are  to  the  lover.  Behind  the  pale  tables 
and  blank  names  of  the  genealogist  is  a  warm 
and  tender  and  beautiful  human  world  upon 
which  his  eye  rests  with  delight.  Human  inter- 
est is  the  source  of  all  good  thinking  ;  the  more 
there  is  of  it  in  the  preacher,  other  things  being 
equal,  the  deeper  he  will  be  as  a  thinker.  Since 
ideas  are  a  necessity,  a  limited  necessity  perhaps, 
to  the  genuine  preacher,  it  would  seem  that  he 
must  possess  some  kind  of  a  theology.  And  the 
higher  the  work  of  intelligence  in  his  calling, 
the  profounder  and  more  coherent  will  be  the 
order  of  ideas  by  which  he  ministers  at  the  altar 
of  human  need.  The  preacher  may  well  feel  it 
incumbent  upon  him  to  assist  in  the  emergence 


50      THE  PREACHER  AS  A   THEOLOGIAN 

from  the  richer  Christian  life  of  to-day  of  an 
ampler,  nobler,  and  more  coherent  order  of  ideas. 
Let  him,  where  he  can,  contribute  something 
toward  the  appreciation  of  the  faith  that  saves 
man.  Let  him  not  put  this  duty  wholly  upon 
the  professional  scholar.  The  expert  is  here  to 
stay.  The  worlds  of  opportunity  are  more  and 
more  rolling  into  view.  History  in  the  largest 
sense  of  the  word  is  the  sphere  of  ideal  revela- 
tions. The  equipment  of  the  scholar,  his  leisure, 
judgment,  patience,  and  authority  are  indispen- 
sable to  progress.  No  one  but  the  expert  can 
do  the  work  of  the  expert.  Once  for  all  that  is 
settled.  Further,  the  pure  thinker  is  one  sent 
from  God  ;  as  the  hue  of  the  sky  is  on  the  sea, 
so  whether  we  would  or  would  not  have  it  so, 
the  cast  of  thought  of  thinkers  like  Aristotle, 
Kant,  and  Hegel  is  on  the  mind  of  educated 
men  the  world  over.  The  task  of  human  pro- 
gress calls  for  a  vast  multitude  and  a  vast  vari- 
ety of  servants.  The  work  of  religious  progress 
calls  for  a  great  company  of  workmen  each 
trained  to  do  some  one  thing  well. 

This  is  the  truth,  yet  I  am  persuaded  that 
it  is  not  the  whole  truth.  The  sphere  of  the 
preacher  is  the  sphere  of  the  theologian.  Where 
there  is  the  requisite  intellectual  power  the  voca- 
tion of  the  preacher  will,  as  in  other  times,  ex- 
press itself  in  an  order  of  ideas.  It  should  not 


THE  PREACHER'S  POSITION  51 

be  forgotten  that  the  best  ethical  work  in  the 
English  language  is  a  volume  of  sermons.  But- 
ler was  a  preacher ;  he  knew  human  nature  ; 
he  knew  the  leading  ideas  of  the  gospel ;  he 
knew  well  how  to  adjust  the  ideas  to  the  life. 
It  was  this  insight  and  equipment  that  enabled 
him  to  write  a  book  on  ethics  of  permanent  and 
priceless  value.  The  man  whose  daily  task  puts 
him  where  he  must  see  the  outgoings  of  morn- 
ing and  evening  may  not  be  a  poet ;  it  cannot  . 
be  denied  that  his  calling  includes  the  oppor- 
tunity of  the  poet.  The  man  whose  vocation 
bids  him  look  through  the  vision  of  Jesus  upon 
birth  and  death,  childhood  and  youth,  work  and 
rest,  trial  and  victory,  love  and  marriage,  joy 
and  sorrow,  hope  and  fear,  the  fierce  egoism 
that  would  desolate  the  world  and  the  self-sur- 
render that  carries  into  humanity  the  sense  of 
God,  the  demand  of  the  individual  conscience 
for  a  pure  heart,  the  demand  of  the  social  con- 
science for  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth 
wherein  dwelleth  righteousness,  —  above  all,  the 
man  whose  vocation  bids  him  look  with  the  eyes 
of  Christ  upon  souls  carried  away  by  the  Spirit, 
stands  on  hallowed  ground.  Here,  if  anywhere, 
great  ideas  come  into  view ;  here  a  comprehen- 
sive order  of  ideas  arises  to  reward  vision  ;  here 
may  be  seen  in  its  grand  outlines  the  theology 
that  will  prevail  in  the  city  of  God. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  QUEST   FOR   A   THEOLOGY 


IT  was  the  remark  of  an  eastern  Massachusetts 
farmer  that  religion  and  theology  are  not  the 
same  thing  by  a  great  deal.  The  ministerial 
tradition,  which  dates  from  the  excellent  Uni- 
tarian preacher  Dr.  Putnam,  is  that  the  farmer's 
remark  was  still  more  emphatic,  too  emphatic 
altogether  for  literal  quotation.  This  distinction 
between  religion  and  theology  is  important  and 
should  never  be  overlooked.  While  the  differ- 
ence between  these  two  interests  may  be  unduly 
emphasized,  less  harm  is  likely  to  come  from  the 
exaggeration  of  the  contrasts  which  they  present 
than  from  the  sheer  identification  of  the  interests 
themselves.  The  identification  of  the  incarna- 
tion with  the  philosophy  of  it,  of  the  atonement 
with  the  governmental  theory  of  it,  of  the  pro- 
cess of  the  spiritual  life  and  the  Calvinistic  or 
Arminian  account  of  it,  is  no  new  thing  in  the 
history  of  the  church.  Dogma  and  faith  are 
alike  and  equally  the  work  of  man  and  the  work 
of  God,  and  yet  the  sheer  identification  of  them 


THE  STANDARD  OF  TRUTH  53 

has  been  a  blunder  and  a  calamity.  Confusion 
between  the  mood  of  the  spirit  and  the  work 
of  the  intellect  has  resulted  ;  to  those  hungering 
for  bread  a  stone  has  thus  been  offered ;  and 
when  religion  and  a  given  interpretation  of  it 
have  become  identical,  persecution  with  sword  hi 
hand  has  gone  forth  on  her  fanatical  and  bloody 
mission.  The  canonization  of  anything  but  the 
Infinite  is  a  mistake.  To  fix  the  standards  of 
truth  and  of  goodness  in  any  utterance  save  the 
utterance  of  God  in  Christ,  in  any  character  save 
the  character  of  God  in  Christ,  is  of  the  na- 
ture of  an  outrage  upon  humanity.  There  is  no 
standard  of  truth  or  of  goodness  short  of  the  In- 
finite truth  and  goodness  to  which  Jesus  Christ 
conducts  men.  But  of  all  mistakes  the  canoni- 
zation of  a  given  theology  is  the  most  fatal.  It 
is  to  hold  that  it  is  the  only  intellectual  form  of 
the  life  of  the  spirit ;  it  is  to  identify  the  highest 
in  man  with  a  particular  phase  of  mental  devel- 
opment. It  is  to  identify  navigation  and  astro- 
nomic theories.  It  is  to  regard  as  one  ocean 
tides  and  scientific  explanations  of  them.  The 
one  phenomenon  is  elemental,  irresistible,  and 
it  goes  in  the  power  of  the  universe ;  the  other 
has  indeed  discerning  eyes,  but  it  is  slow-paced 
and  uncertain.  Religion  is  the  original  human 
necessity ;  theology  is  but  a  derivative  and  limited 
necessity. 


54  THE  QUEST  FOB  A   THEOLOGY 

Religion  is  essential  to  man ;  it  is  his  mood 
and  bearing  toward  the  universe,  the  spirit  in 
which  he  regards  human  society,  the  attitude  of 
his  heart  toward  God.  Theology,  while  valuable 
to  all,  is  essential  only  to  the  teacher  of  religion. 
The  teacher  of  religion  is  the  producer  of  re- 
ligion, and  he  finds  that  he  is  stronger  as  a  pro- 
ducer when  he  is  intelligent  and  sincere  as  a 
student  of  the  science  of  religion.  The  farmer 
is  a  producer  of  wealth,  and  he  is  at  his  best  as 
a  producer  when  he  works  in  the  light  of  a  true 
political  economy.  Religion  is  primarily  feel- 
ing ;  intellect  is  in  it  only  in  an  instinctive  way, 
and  it  comes  to  action  at  first  by  its  own  pure 
impulse.  Edwards  shows  his  careful  insight  in 
his  doctrine  that  "  true  religion,  in  great  part, 
consists  in  holy  affections."  The  affections  are 
indeed  penetrated  with  instinctive  reason,  and 
will  is  always  in  supreme  desire.  "  Whom  not 
having  seen  ye  love."  The  picture  of  the  unseen 
Christ  is  in  the  love,  and  the  love  flows  out 
in  the  stream  of  heroic  life,  unchecked  even  by 
"  manifold  temptations."  Still  religion  is  best 
described  as  feeling  over  against  theology  as  an 
expression  of  the  meaning  of  this  feeling.  Theo- 
logy inquires  after  the  source  of  this  high  ex- 
perience, its  character,  its  assurance,  its  worth. 
Religion  may  be  viewed  as  life,  and  theology  as 
the  expression  of  this  life  in  fundamental  ideas 


PRACTICAL  INTERESTS  AND  SCIENCE    55 

set  in  their  true  order.  •  Religion  is  thus  the  pri- 
mary and  universal  interest ;  theology  is  second- 
ary and  limited.  Religion  is  material ;  theology 
is  form.  Religion  is  master  ;  theology  is  servant. 
And  for  this  reason  whoever  wishes  to  be  an 
effective  minister  of  religion  should  strive  to 
compass  a  clear  and  commanding  theology. 

Practical  interests  breed  the  sciences.  They 
are  organized  and  carried  forward  by  chosen 
persons  for  the  sake  of  the  interests  that  are 
practical,  universal,  and  imperative.  Political 
economy  results  from  the  necessity  man  is  under 
to  create  wealth ;  it  is  an  attempt  at  an  interpre- 
tation of  the  economic  situation ;  it  is  an  instance 
of  the  understanding  working  in  the  interest  of 
practical  ends.  The  science  of  ethics  has  risen 
out  of  the  endeavor  on  the  part  of  man  to  ren- 
der his  life  reasonable.  It  is  the  expression  of 
a  great  human  interest,  and  it  is  the  permanent 
servant  of  that  interest.  Chemistry,  physics, 
biology,  physiology,  psychology,  represent  the 
interests  of  living  men  served  through  the  scien- 
tific intellect.  A  science  with  no  conceivable 
relation  to  human  welfare,  in  the  largest  sense 
of  that  term,  is  a  piece  of  altruism  for  which  no 
sane  man  should  be  competent.  The  science  of 
astronomy  has  obvious  practical  relations,  as  in 
navigation ;  but  beyond  these,  and  in  its  most 
abstract  form,  it  is  the  expression  of  the  intelli- 


56  THE  QUEST  FOB  A   THEOLOGY 

gence  without  which  human  life  would  be  worth- 
less. In  its  utmost  reach  of  remoteness  from 
the  affairs  of  men  it  is  still  the  high  expression 
and  the  noble  servant  of  an  essential  human  in- 
terest. Even  if  one  shall  take  a  humorous  view 
of  the  intellectual  effort  of  the  race,  one  must  still 
confess  its  essentialness.  Even  if  one  shall  re- 
gard the  successive  dynasties  of  science  and  art 
and  philosophy  as  like  the  soap  bubbles  which 
the  children  blow  and  with  which  they  amuse 
themselves,  still  these  brilliant  and  unsubstantial 
creations  must  be  admitted  to  be  expressions  and 
servants  of  a  genuine  human  impulse.  They  are 
the  signs  of  life  and  humor,  they  are  the  tokens 
of  growth  and  joy.  Thus,  upon  any  view  of 
their  value,  even  the  lowest,  the  theoretic  inter- 
ests of  man  rise  out  of  his  living,  practical  inter- 
ests and  they  return  upon  them.  These  scientific 
pursuits  are  related  to  the  business  of  living  as 
the  exhalations  from  the  sea  are  to  the  fruitful 
earth.  Mists  rise  out  of  the  deep,  gather  into 
great  clouds  laden  with  blessing,  and  this  bless- 
ing is  poured  from  the  open  windows  of  heaven 
back  upon  the  earth  from  which  it  came.  No 
one  science  can  be  named  whose  vital  interest  is 
independent  of  the  business  of  living.  With- 
draw the  practical  world,  and  the  theoretic  world 
would  die ;  cancel  the  theoretic  world,  and  the 
practical  world  would  lapse  into  the  original 


THE  UNIVERSITY  IDEAL  57 

darkness.  The  university  is  one  great  symbol 
of  the  union  of  these  two  interests.  The  uni- 
versity represents  the  intelligence  of  the  world 
organized  round  the  great  living  interests  of  man. 
Science  is  inseparable  from  applied  science,  cul- 
ture from  applied  culture,  knowledge  from  know- 
ledge in  the  service  of  society.  The  old  division 
of  learning  into  the  sciences  and  the  humanities 
is  wholly  artificial.  The  studies  of  biology,  ana- 
tomy, and  physiology,  which  go  to  fit  the  phy- 
sician for  his  profession,  deserve  the  name  of 
humanity  no  less  than  the  studies  in  language, 
history,  and  literature,  which  qualify  the  writer 
for  his  vocation.  The  task  of  the  university  is 
to  discover  the  permanent  interests  of  man,  and 
to  organize  the  intellect  of  the  world  for  the  pro- 
motion of  the  whole  circle  of  these  interests. 

Here  is  the  true  description  for  the  character 
and  vocation  of  theology.  It  is  intellect  in  the 
service  of  the  heart ;  it  is  Christian  intellect  or- 
ganized for  the  promotion  of  the  Christian  life. 
Theology  bears  the  same  relation  to  the  soul  that 
science  does  to  farming,  mining,  manufacture, 
navigation,  sanitation,  hygiene,  the  treatment  of 
the  body,  the  construction  of  public  works,  the 
general  promotion  of  the  interests  of  civilized 
man.  Theology,  like  science,  stands  for  know- 
ledge whose  whole  value  is  in  its  use..  A  priori 
science  and  a  priori  theology  are  alike  and 


58  THE  QUEST  FOB  A  THEOLOGY 

equally  absurd.  True  science  and  sound  theo- 
logy have  an  experiential  basis.  Neither  can 
create  anything ;  each  is  dependent  for  material 
upon  the  generative  power  of  life.  The  exter- 
nal world  is  a  world  in  the  senses ;  it  is  a  world 
to  be  understood  through  the  senses ;  it  is  pri- 
marily a  world  in  one  side  of  human  life.  Sci-» 
ence  comes  with  her  torch  and  her  high  inven- 
tions and  her  laborious  hours  to  enable  life  to 
seize  its  great  inheritance,  to  understand  and  to 
turn  to  use  the  world  that  lies  in  its  heart.  The 
object  of  science  is  given ;  it  is  to  be  under- 
stood ;  it  is  to  be  understood  that  it  may  be 
enjoyed.  And  back  to  the  world  given  in  sense 
science  must  bring  her  work  for  judgment. 
There  is  only  one  sure  way  of  getting  rid  of 
false  science,  and  that  is  by  subjecting  it  to  the 
test  of  fact.  There  is  only  one  sure  way  of  vin- 
dicating true  science,  and  that  is  by  showing  its 
complete  comformity  to  fact.  This  is  part  of 
the  axiom  that  the  validity  of  thought  is  every- 
where to  be  tested  by  life.  Thought  may  become 
widely  generalized,  highly  abstract ;  that  is,  the 
point  of  resemblance  among  things  over  a  vast 
expanse  of  being  seized  by  the  mind  may  be  but 
a  thread  in  the  mighty  fabric  of  existence,  may 
look  like  a  brook  in  the  valley  seen  from  an 
Alpine  peak.  This  fine  aspect  of  existence  may 
be  isolated,  for  the  purposes  of  thought,  from  its 


THE  WORLD  OF  FACT  59 

great  context  of  reality,  may  be  compared  or 
contrasted  with  other  aspects,  and  a  whole  body 
of  ideas  may  be  deduced  from  this  comparison 
or  contrast.  Color  may  be  treated  apart  from 
the  colored  object,  shades  of  color  may  be  singled 
out  of  the  general  mass  of  color,  other  finer  tints 
still  may  engage  the  mind,  and  these  may  be 
brought  into  comparison  and  contrast  among 
themselves,  and  a  body  of  ideas  come  into  exist- 
ence exceedingly  remote  from  the  world  that  lies 
in  the  sunlight.  This  is  an  inevitable  procedure 
in  all  science  and  in  all  thought.  The  point 
made,  however,  is  that  this  world  of  general 
ideas  must  come  back  to  the  world  of  fact  for 
judgment.  It  is  a  world  of  fancy  and  not  of 
truth  unless  it  is  in  conformity  to  the  world  of 
fact. 

Nowhere  should  this  procedure  be  more  strictly 
applied  than  in  theology.  It  should  be  made 
clear  that  the  Christian  life  is  the  source  of 
Christian  theology.  There  is  the  fountain  of  its 
material.  There  is  the  world  that  it  is  to  under- 
stand and  explain.  God  and  the  moral  universe 
are  for  the  soul ;  and  theology  is  here  as  guide, 
interpreter,  passionate  lover,  and  wise  servant. 
Theology  becomes  highly  general,  highly  ab- 
stract ;  its  ideas  are  aspects  of  life  as  a  whole ; 
and  these  aspects  of  life  as  a  whole,  when  com- 
pared and  contrasted  among  themselves,  give 


60  THE  QUEST  FOR  A  THEOLOGY 

rise  to  other  still  remoter  views  of  existence. 
And  sometimes  theology  takes  wings  and  flies 
away  from  the  real  world  altogether.  Then  it 
should  be  discredited,  or  treated  as  a  work  of 
imagination.  Genuine  theology  will  always  be 
known  through  the  test  of  fact.  Bring  all  the 
theologies  face  to  face  with  the  deep  and  devout 
Christian  heart ;  confront  them  with  the  heart 
of  Christ.  In  so  far  as  they  conform  to  that 
test  they  are  true ;  in  so  far  as  they  fail  they 
are  not  true.  The  best  protection  against  false 
science  is  a  good  command  of  the  facts  which  it 
professes  to  treat ;  the  surest  defense  against 
bad  theology  is  a  great  vital  Christian  experi- 
ence. Aristotle  thought  that  young  men  were 
poor  students  of  ethics  because  they  were  defi- 
cient in  the  experience  out  of  which  the  science 
of  ethics  rises ;  and  it  is  certain  that  without 
profound  Christian  experience  theology  will  be 
an  unreal  and  dismal  structure.  The  quest  for 
a  theology  throws  one  back  with  tremendous 
emphasis  upon  the  grand  primacy  of  life.  That 
once  established,  the  vocation  of  theology  is  clear ; 
that  once  established,  the  necessity  of  theology 
for  the  minister  to  the  soul  is  evident. 

II 

Until  within  the  last   five-and-twenty  years 
theologies  were  ready-made,  waiting  to  be  under- 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  THEOLOGY  61 

stood  and  appropriated.  Two  competing  theo- 
logies were  on  hand,  the  Calvinistic  in  several 
varieties,  and  the  Arminian.  The  function  of 
the  theological  student  was  generally  one  of 
mere  scholarship;  it  was,  with  now  and  then 
a  notable  exception,  to  learn,  to  understand,  to 
choose  between  rival  schools,  to  appropriate  and 
use.  The  panoply  of  Calvin  reduced  in  size  was 
kept  on  hand  for  the  young  fighter  for  right- 
eousness ;  and  it  was  not  difficult  to  obtain  the 
armor  of  Arminius  similarly  made  over.  Here 
and  there  a  David  was  found  who  rejected  this 
theological  armor,  and  who  went  forth  against 
the  enemy  with  the  five  smooth  stones  from  the 
river  of  God  and  the  sling;  who  took  his  re- 
ligion and  did  his  valiant  deeds  wholly  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts.  This  was,  however, 
the  exception ;  it  was  the  daring  method  of 
genius  sure  of  its  purpose  and  its  divining  skill. 
Until  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
as  a  rule,  the  quest  for  a  theology  was  not  a  dif- 
ficult one.  As  I  have  said,  the  student  had  but 
to  understand,  adopt,  and  employ  the  past  think- 
ing of  the  church. 

It  is  intensely  interesting  to  watch  the  church 
emerging  from  the  mists  of  the  first  third  of  the 
second  century  without  a  theology.  How  sorely 
beset  the  brave  apologists  were  as  they  found 
the  new  religion  with  its  glorious  life  coming 


62  THE  QUEST  FOB  A  THEOLOGY 

into  contact  both  sympathetic  and  hostile  with 
the  old  world  and  its  intellectual  habits  and  pos- 
sessions. The  time  had  come,  not  simply  for  the 
utterance  of  a  common  faith  or  for  the  appeal 
to  conscience,  but  for  the  large  use  of  reason  in 
religion.  The  time  had  gone  when  the  sufficient 
medium  of  Christian  utterance  was  sympathy, 
when  the  poetic  method  of  symbol  or  the  throw- 
ing out  of  words  at  their  great  objects  was  ade- 
quate. The  preacher  could  no  longer  depend 
upon  the  hearer  for  sympathetic  insight,  still 
less  for  receptivity.  The  time  had  arrived  for 
definition,  for  telling  the  meaning  of  the  new 
faith  in  an  order  of  ideas.  What  has  the  new 
faith  to  say  about  the  universe,  concerning  its 
Founder,  in  reference  to  the  origin  of  the  world, 
respecting  its  sacred  books,  regarding  the  goal 
of  history  and  the  age  to  come?  A  world  of 
educated  Greeks  and  Romans,  swayed  by  definite 
conceptions  of  the  universe,  or  controlled  by  a 
profound  skepticism,  was  the  environment  in 
which  theology  became  a  necessity.  The  com- 
munities in  which  Platonism,  Aristotelianism, 
Stoicism,  and  Epicureanism  were  the  intellectual 
possession  made  it  impossible  that  the  office  of 
the  preacher  who  had  no  theology  should  be  a 
bed  of  roses.  Sufficient  honor  is  rarely  felt  for 
the  apologists.  They  were  the  men  who  made 
a  beginning ;  and  their  task  was  like  creation. 


THE  APOLOGISTS  63 

They  had  to  make  a  theological  world  out  of 
nothing.  Materials  there  were,  elements  pre- 
existed in  abundance;  but  the  design  of  a 
reasoned  expression  of  the  new  faith  for  the  new 
time  was  originated  by  the  apologists.  You 
can  see  them  —  Aristides,  Justin,  Fabian,  Athen- 
agoras,  Theophilus,  the  satirical  Hermias,  the 
vehement  Mencius  —  standing  in  the  mist  of 
that  early  morning  and  working  bravely  and 
well  for  the  Eternal  gospel  that  they  loved. 
There  should  be  immense  sympathy  between 
those  apologists  and  students  of  theology  to-day. 
They  found  nothing  ready-made  that  could  serve 
their  need ;  and  that  is  the  crisis  upon  which  we 
have  come.  They  stood  with  four  great  rival 
systems  of  philosophy  confronting  them  as  dis- 
ciples and  defenders  of  the  new  religion  ;  and 
to-day  the  preacher  delivers  his  message  in  an 
environment  similarly  charged  with  forces  both 
kindred  and  alien.  They  appear  in  the  mists 
of  a  new  day,  busy  with  beginnings  in  the  be- 
wildering fogs  of  the  dawning  epoch,  flitting 
about  like  shadows  in  their  morning  time  of 
cloud  and  sun.  If  we  shall  appear  to  as  good 
advantage  eighteen  centuries  hence,  in  the  dim 
twilight  in  which  we  are  working  with  so  little 
comprehension  of  the  new  epoch  and  so  great 
hopes,  we  may  well  be  thankful.  As  we  see 
Justin  take  the  great  Stoic  thought  of  the  Xoyos, 


64  THE  QUEST  FOR  A  THEOLOGY 

the  Divine  reason  immanent  in  the  universe,  im- 
manent in  man,  the  thought  that  accounts  for 
the  intelligibleness  of  the  universe  and  the  in- 
telligence of  man ;  as  we  see  Justin  take  this 
insight  of  the  highest  minds  of  his  age  and 
declare  that  that  Divine  reason  became  incarnate 
in  Jesus  Christ,  we  may  well  aspire  to  make  as 
wise  and  as  fruitful  a  use  of  philosophic  ideas 
for  the  service  of  our  faith  as  he  did  for  his 
faith. 

In  Clement  and  Origen  we  witness  great  cre- 
ative activity.  In  a  less,  and  still  in  a  remark- 
able degree,  the  creative  mood  is  present  in 
Athanasius  and  the  Gregories.  What  we  have 
to  note  here  is  the  necessity  for  a  theology  that 
works  through  these  wonderful  men.  In  the 
West  a  parallel  necessity  is  seen  working  in 
Tertullian,  and  yet  more  in  Augustine.  Man 
is  the  subject  of  the  new  religion,  and  he  needs 
to  be  understood  in  his  nature  and  history. 
The  demand  for  an  anthropology  is  as  impera- 
tive as  the  call  for  a  theology.  The  romance 
lying  in  those  old  thinkers,  the  poetry  hidden 
under  their  outgrown  discussions,  is  discovered 
when  one  thinks  of  their  work  as  a  vast  and 
joyous  response  to  the  divine  necessity  of  the 
time.  They  stand  for  an  infinite  spiritual  pos- 
session beset  with  the  gravest  peril,  calling 
for  intellectual  forms  suitable  to  the  age,  forms 


PLATO  AND  ARISTOTLE  65 

of  preservation  for  the  Christian  faith  and  forms 
of  power  for  it.  They  stand  for  an  immense 
creative  movement  in  theology.  And  because  of 
the  creative  spirit  that  is  in  them  these  theo- 
logies will  always  have  life.  They  are  related 
to  theology  to-day  as  Plato  and  Aristotle  are 
related  to  philosophy.  The  great  Greek  think- 
ers are  in  part  still  classic.  In  his  disclosure 
of  the  importance  of  general  ideas  in  the  So- 
cratic  Dialogues  Plato  is  still  unequaled  ;  in  his 
treatment  of  the  dignity  of  the  soul  in  the 
"  Phaedo,"  the  "  Phaedrus,"  and  the  "  Republic  " 
he  remains  unsurpassed ;  in  his  idea  of  the  Good 
as  related  to  the  invisible  and  rational  world  as 
the  sun  is  to  the  visible  he  continues  an  inspir- 
ing teacher ;  while  in  his  conception  of  the  ideal 
society  there  is  much  to  instruct  the  preacher  of 
the  kingdom  of  God.  In  his  definition  and  ex- 
position of  syllogistic  reasoning  Aristotle  is  yet 
master;  in  his  wavering  account  of  reality  as 
existing  in  the  union  of  the  individual  and  the 
universal  he  touches  this  age  at  a  vital  point ;  in 
his  treatment  of  the  family,  in  his  idea  of  friend- 
ship, in  his  entire  ethical  and  political  philo- 
sophy, he  is  strong  enough  to  incite  a  beneficent 
revolution.  And  his  conception  that  the  material 
for  all  science  and  all  philosophy  is  furnished 
from  experience,  from  the  living  soul  in  a  living 
social  order,  is  a  lesson  of  immense  moment 


66  THE  QUEST  FOR  A  THEOLOGY 

for  thinkers,  and  especially  for  theologians,  to-day. 
These  two  Greek  philosophers  are  here  and  there 
still  classic ;  in  larger  sections  they  remain  the 
world's  teachers ;  and  in  the  grandeur  of  their 
creative  movement  they  continue  to  inspire  the 
organism  of  thought  which  as  a  whole  has  gone 
beyond  them.  Not  quite  so  much  can  be  said  of 
these  theologians  of  the  third  and  fourth  and 
fifth  centuries,  and  yet  something  like  this  may 
be  said  of  them.  Here  and  there  they  say  things 
with  surpassing  wisdom ;  for  example,  Clement's 
teaching  on  the  education  of  mankind,  Origen's 
movement  backward  from  Jesus  Christ  into  the 
Godhead,  the  Nicene  Creed  as  an  expression 
of  faith,  Augustine  on  the  relation  of  faith  to 
knowledge,  that  is,  experience  to  theology,  and 
on  love.  In  a  larger  way  these  theologians  are 
still  an  enriching  study ;  but  best  of  all,  while 
in  contact  with  them  one  feels  in  company  with 
first-hand  thinkers,  creative  minds,  struggling 
with  unequal  conditions  to  put  their  spiritual 
possession  into  adequate  and  commanding  intel- 
lectual form. 

From  the  fifth  century  to  the  Reformation  the 
creative  spirit  vanishes  from  theology.  Even 
then  what  we  witness  is  a  theological  revival  and 
not  a  new  creation.  Luther  and  Calvin  are  ex- 
positors of  Augustinianism.  New  ideas  are  in 
society,  but  they  are  crushed  by  John  Calvin 


REVIVED  AUGUSTINIANISM  67 

into  the  old  categories.  The  originality  of  Ed- 
wards lies  outside  of  his  system.  It  is  to  be 
found  in  his  essays  on  "  The  Will,"  "  The  True 
Nature  of  Virtue,"  "  The  Ultimate  End  in  Crea- 
tion," and  "  Religious  Affections."  There  is  in 
Edwards  no  radical  reorganization  of  theology ; 
there  is,  however,  the  basis  of  it.  His  one  great 
idea  is  the  absoluteness  of  God.  It  is  God  for 
whom  Edwards  stands  from  first  to  last,  and  his 
conception  of  God  is  the  promise  of  a  new  world 
in  theology.  When  Edwards's  thought  of  the  ab- 
solute moral  perfection  of  God  shall  obtain  care- 
ful, fearless,  and  consistent  expression,  a  new 
day  will  dawn  upon  theology.  MacLeod  Camp- 
bell broke  away  from  traditional  opinion  at  one 
point,  —  the  value  of  the  cross  as  an  expression  of 
God's  love  for  mankind.  At  this  point  Horace 
Bushnell  broke  away,  and  through  his  impatience 
with  formal  theology  and  his  spiritual  genius  it 
is  easy  to  exaggerate  the  measure  in  which  he 
abandoned  the  traditional  position.  He  was  the 
inaugurator  of  a  movement  greater  than  he  knew, 
and  he  was  full  of  impulses  the  significance  of 
which  even  he  did  not  understand.  There  was 
in  him  the  old  creative  spirit,  with  the  literary 
method  as  opposed  to  the  formal,  and  his  break 
with  the  past  at  one  supreme  point  —  atonement 
—  and  at  two  or  three  subordinate  points  was  a 
prophecy  of  the  coining  inevitable  reorganization 


68  THE  QUEST  FOR  A   THEOLOGY 

of  theology.  Still  this  conception  is  hardly  in 
him;  and  it  is  certain  that  he  did  not  use  it. 
Until  the  final  third  of  the  nineteenth  century  I 
can  find  no  thinker,  except  F.  D.  Maurice,  whose 
mind  is  creative  over  the  whole  domain  of  dog- 
matic belief.  The  mention  of  Maurice  recalls 
the  fact  that  concerning  no  other  eminent  name 
in  the  nineteenth  century  is  there  so  wide  a  dif- 
ference of  opinion.  In  1856  Dr.  Martineau 
writes  of  Maurice  :  "  We  do  not  deny  that  his 
meaning  is  at  times  difficult  to  reach ;  for  it  is 
apt  to  be  delayed  too  long  by  his  scrupulous 
candor  of  concession,  his  modest  shrinking  from 
self-assertion,  his  preference  of  the  sympathetic 
to  the  distinctive  attitude.  But  we  venture  with 
some  confidence  to  assert  that  for  consistency 
and  completeness  of  thought,  and  precision  in 
the  use  of  language,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find 
his  superior  among  living  theologians."  l  Upon 
this  Martineau's  friend  F.  W.  Newman  responds : 
"  As  to  Maurice  I  am  sure  that  you  understand 
him,  and  on  your  testimony  I  believe  there  is  in 
him  a  noble  and  self-consistent  religious  theory ; 
but  that  will  not  enable  me  to  suspect  that  it  is 
my  fault  and  not  his  that  I  find  him  obscure."  2 
Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  thinks  that  the  reason  why 
Green  the  historian  broke  away  from  the  influ- 

1  Essays,  vol.  i.  p.  258. 

2  Life  and  Letters  of  Dr.  Martineau,  vol.  i.  pp.  288,  289. 


FREDERICK  D.  MAURICE  69 

ence  of  Maurice  was  Maurice's  lack  of  clear- 
headedness. In  another  connection  Mr.  Stephen 
says :  "  Though  Maurice  was  far  from  clear- 
headed, I  fully  believe  that  his  liberal  and  hu- 
mane spirit  was  of  the  greatest  value,  and  that 
he  did  more  than  most  men  to  raise  the  so- 
cial tone  in  regard  to  the  greatest  problems."  1 
Froude  comments  upon  what  he  is  pleased  to 
call  Maurice's  "  strange  obliquity  of  intellect 
which  could  think  that  black  was  white,  and 
white  because  it  was  black,  and  the  whiter  al- 
ways, the  blacker  the  shade."2  The  curious 
stupidity  of  Froude's  judgment  finds  a  parallel 
in  the  noble  condescension  with  which  a  very 
slender  writer  sums  up  his  opinion  on  Maurice : 
"A  very  generous  and  amiable  person  with  a 
deficient  sense  of  history,  Maurice  in  his  writing 
is  a  sort  of  elder,  less  gifted,  and  more  exclu- 
sively theological  Charles  Kingsley,  on  whom  he 
exercised  great  and  rather  unfortunate  influ- 
ence. But  his  looseness  of  thought,  wayward 
eclecticism  of  system,  and  want  of  accurate  learn- 
ing, were  not  remedied  by  Kingsley's  splendid 
pictorial  faculty,  his  creative  imagination,  or  his 
brilliant  style." 3  It  is  a  relief  to  turn  from 
this  to  the  judgment  of  Dr.  Fairbairn  :  "  Fred- 

1  The  English  Utilitarians,  vol.  iii.  p.  476. 
-  Thomas  Carlyle,  vol.  iii.  p.  109. 

8  George  Saintsbury,  A  History  of  Nineteenth  Century  Liter- 
ature, p.  370. 


70  THE  QUEST  FOR  A  THEOLOGY 

erick  Maurice  was  a  personality  of  rare  charm, 
with  a  soul  ever  turned  toward  the  light,  with  a 
large  range  of  vision,  and  a  love  of  love  and 
light  that  makes  him  the  most  mystical  thinker 
of  our  century."  *  John  Stuart  Mill,  who  knew 
Maurice  and  who  had  met  him  in  debate,  and 
who  was  grieved  over  the  use  that  Maurice  made 
of  his  powers,  writes :  "  With  Maurice  I  had  for 
some  time  been  acquainted  through  Eyton  Tooke, 
who  had  known  him  at  Cambridge,  and  although 
my  discussions  with  him  were  almost  always  dis- 
putes, I  had  carried  away  from  them  much  that 
helped  to  build  up  my  new  fabric  of  thought,  in 
the  same  way  as  I  was  deriving  much  from 
Coleridge,  and  from  the  writings  of  Goethe  and 
other  German  authors  which  I  read  during  these 
years.  I  have  so  deep  a  respect  for  Maurice's 
character  and  purposes,  as  well  as  for  his  great 
mental  gifts,  that  it  is  with  some  unwillingness 
I  say  anything  which  may  seem  to  place  him 
on  a  less  high  eminence  than  I  would  gladly 
be  able  to  accord  to  him.  But  I  have  always 
thought  that  there  was  more  intellectual  power 
wasted  in  Maurice  than  in  any  other  of  my  con- 
temporaries. Few  of  them  certainly  have  had 
so  much  to  waste.  Great  powers  of  generaliza- 
tion, rare  ingenuity  and  subtlety,  and  a  wide 
perception  of  important  and  unobvious  truths 

1  Catholicism,  Roman  and  Anglican,  p.  317. 


MILL  ON  MAURICE  71 

served  him  not  for  putting  something  better  into 
the  place  of  the  worthless  heap  of  received  opin- 
ions on  the  great  subjects  of  thought,  but  for 
proving  to  his  own  mind  that  the  Church  of 
England  had  known  everything  from  the  first, 
and  that  all  the  truths  on  the  ground  of  which 
the  church  and  orthodoxy  have  been  attacked 
(many  of  which  he  saw  as  clearly  as  any  one) 
are  not  only  consistent  with  the  Thirty-nine  Ar- 
ticles, but  are  better  understood  and  expressed 
in  those  articles  than  by  any  one  who  rejects 
them." l  This  roll  of  witnesses  may  fittingly 
end  with  the  testimony  of  Tennyson.  Speaking 
of  the  members  of  the  London  Metaphysical 
Club,  and  recalling  the  names  of  many  eminent 
men,  including  those  of  Huxley  and  Martineau, 
Tennyson  refers  to  Maurice  as  "  probably  the 
greatest  mind  among  them." 

Speaking  for  myself,  the  Maurice  whom  I  seem 
to  know  is  the  Maurice  defined  by  Mill  as  a 
person  of  "  great  powers  of  generalization,  rare 
ingenuity  and  subtlety,  and  a  wide  perception 
of  important  and  unobvious  truths."  Mill's 
criticism  is  also  well-founded.  Maurice  tried  to 
make  room  in  the  creed  of  the  Anglican  church 
for  the  richer  truth  of  the  modern  world.  The 
new  wine  and  the  old  wineskins  do  not  belong 
together.  Something  should  have  been  defi- 

1  J.  S.  Mill,  Autobiography,  pp.  152,  153. 


72  THE  QUEST  FOR  A  THEOLOGY 

nitely  and  thankfully  abandoned.  Definite  and 
vigorous  rejection  of  the  intellectually  discredited 
is  the  duty  to  which  Maurice  was  unequal.  But 
this  failure  need  not  mislead,  nor  should  it 
greatly  embarrass  the  student  of  his  writings  to- 
day. Maurice  was  a  vastly  larger  intellect  in 
theology  than  any  other  of  his  time.  He  found 
himself  in  an  age  of  transition,  where  it  is  so 
easy  to  break  with  history  like  F.  W.  Newman, 
or  to  take  refuge  under  authority  like  J.  H. 
Newman.  Maurice  saw  in  the  theological  tradi- 
tion of  the  church  something  infinitely  precious. 
This  treasure  was  contained  in  an  earthen  vessel, 
the  gold  was  sadly  mixed  with  alloy,  and  work- 
ing on  the  safe  and  conservative  principle  of  de- 
velopment, Maurice  made  it  the  business  of  his 
teaching  to  discover  and  announce  the  higher 
meanings  in  the  creeds  of  the  church.  He  is 
doubtless  open  to  criticism  in  much  of  his  work ; 
yet  it  seems  to  me  his  position  is  essentially 
sound.  The  tradition  of  faith  is  of  infinite  mo- 
ment ;  it  should  not  be  abandoned ;  it  should  be 
put  under  the  process  of  evolution. 

Personally  a  spiritual  splendor,  Maurice  is  in 
his  writings  generally  without  form  or  comeli- 
ness. There  are  in  him  passages  of  great 
beauty ;  indeed  it  would  not  be  difficult  to 
quote  from  him  sentences  of  classic  excellence ; 
and  occasionally  of  his  work  as  a  whole  much 


THE  MERIT  OF  MAUEICE  73 

might  be  said  in  praise  of  its  form.  For  exam- 
ple, a  clearer,  better-ordered,  sounder  volume  — 
a  volume  with  distinction  in  title,  in  design,  and 
in  execution  down  to  the  last  sentence  —  than 
that  on  "  Social  Morality  "  it  would  be  difficult 
to  name.  On  the  whole,  however,  as  an  author 
there  is  in  Maurice  little  beauty  that  men  should 
desire  him.  In  a  profound  way  he  answers  to 
the  prophetic  conception  of  the  suffering  servant 
of  Jehovah.  Besides  the  lack  of  form,  the  num- 
ber of  Maurice's  books  creates  dismay.  Except 
in  his  "  Theological  Essays,"  his  most  difficult 
book,  Maurice  nowhere  condenses  his  thought 
into  one  great  expression.  For  these  reasons 
he  is  read  only  by  the  few ;  but  for  those  who 
have  patience  there  is  no  name  among  the  illus- 
trious dead  of  the  nineteenth  century,  not  ex- 
cepting Schleiermacher,  who  in  range  and  sanity 
of  vision,  in  due  assertion  of  both  the  objective 
and  the  subjective  in  religion,  the  historical  and 
the  personal,  in  steadfast  sense  of  the  Eternal, 
and  in  the  movement  of  essential  reason  —  rea- 
son cleared  of  its  poor  scholastic  impedimenta 
—  is  on  the  same  level  with  Maurice.  He  will 
be  found  to  cover  an  immense  range  of  belief, 
with  a  depth  infrequent  in  British  thought,  and 
to  operate  theology  upon  Edwards's  foundation 
of  the  absoluteness  of  God  as  no  other  thinker 
has  yet  done. 


74  THE  QUEST  FOB  A   THEOLOGY 

in 

We  have  come  upon  a  new  day  in  theology. 
Within  the  last  twenty-five  years  in  Great  Brit- 
ain and  in  New  England  the  traditional  theology 
has  passed  away.  Like  the  ice  fields  that  move 
south,  these  traditional  beliefs  have  disappeared, 
melted  under  the  power  of  the  new  intellectual 
climate  into  which  they  have  floated.  In  the 
far  north  similar  fields  exist,  and  in  the  polar 
regions  they  always  will  exist  in  absolute  safety  ; 
and  in  certain  latitudes  beliefs  that  cannot  en- 
dure elsewhere  are  completely  secure.  They  are 
embalmed  in  ignorance ;  they  are  shielded  by 
excess  of  darkness  ;  they  are  increased  by  at- 
mospheric frigidity.  From  Calvinistic  Scotland 
there  has  floated  out  into  nothingness  a  great 
body  of  obsolete  divinity.  There  has  been  no 
controversy  about  it.  Progress  has,  like  a  flood, 
carried  it  away.  The  same  is  true  of  English 
Nonconformity.  The  traditional  theological 
system  has  silently  passed  out  of  belief.  The 
Arminianism  of  the  educated  Anglican  is  wasted 
to  a  shadow.  Religion  there  is  in  abundant, 
happy  power ;  but  for  the  new  religion  there 
is  only  the  promise  of  an  adequate  theology.  In 
New  England,  and  in  all  the  enlightened  por- 
tions of  the  country,  the  same  fact  is  obvious. 
If  we  regret  it,  the  regret  cannot  mend  the 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  THEOLOGY          75 

condition  of  affairs.  If  we  think  that  the  tra- 
ditional theology  was  not  a  burden,  but  a  high 
distinction,  we  must  still  add  as  we  survey  the 
educated  world  :  — 

"  It  is  not  now  as  it  has  been  of  yore ; 
Turn  •wheresoe'er  I  may, 
By  night  or  day, 
The  things  which  I  have  seen  I  now  can  see  no  more." 

Within  a  quarter  of  a  century  a  body  of  theo- 
logical opinion,  which  had  endured  with  only 
minor  modifications  for  fifteen  hundred  years, 
has  become  obsolete.  Not  since  the  beginning 
of  preaching  has  there  been  any  time  so  hard 
upon  the  educated  and  honest  minister. 

There  is  still  only  the  promise  of  a  theology 
to  replace  that  which  has  gone.  And  when  we 
think  what  it  means  to  elaborate  a  theology  for 
a  nation,  for  Christendom,  one  that  shall  appeal 
to  men  to-day  as  the  old  did  during  its  millennial 
dominion,  conforming  the  intellectual  habit  of  so- 
ciety to  itself  for  centuries  and  shaping  thought 
upon  all  supreme  issues,  the  promise  of  a  theo- 
logy is  fitted  to  gladden  the  Christian  heart  and 
to  stimulate  able  and  honest  men  everywhere 
to  do  what  may  be  done  to  carry  the  prophecy 
to  fulfillment.  This  is  the  hope  that  is  so  mighty 
upon  the  educated  minister.  He  knows  that  in- 
tellectual form  is  essential  to  the  best  condition 
of  religious  life.  He  knows  that  the  evolution 


76  THE  QUEST  FOB  A  THEOLOGY 

of  the  new  intellectual  form  must  take  time. 
The  process  cannot  be  forced.  But  if  the  ideal 
is  secure,  and  if  the  process  that  moves  toward 
it  is  real  and  living,  the  hope  thus  inspired 
is  sufficient  to  make  every  thinker  do  his  best 
to  contribute  something  toward  the  final  grand 
result.  If  it  took  the  church  five  centuries  to 
elaborate  and  perfect  the  Greek  and  the  Latin 
theologies,  we  shall  be  open  to  the  charge  of 
impatience  if  we  look  for  corresponding  results 
in  a  generation. 

The  last  five-and-twenty  years  have  been 
immense  years.  During  that  time  a  new  scien- 
tific conception  has  had  to  be  mastered,  the 
conception  of  evolution.  This  conception  has 
given  rise  to  a  new  natural  history.  The  history 
of  life  upon  the  earth  has  been  rewritten,  and 
it  has  had  to  be  read.  This  new  history  of 
animal  life  has  issued  in  an  astonishing  natural 
history  of  man.  Even  this  amazing  volume 
could  have  been  mastered  much  sooner  had  not 
pride  and  prejudice  stood  in  the  way.  The 
story  that  Dr.  Drummond  was  fond  of  telling 
illustrates  the  initial  mood  of  a  generation.  A 
society  lady  and  her  daughter  happened  to  be 
present  at  a  lecture  on  evolution,  in  which  man 
was  described  as  the  descendant  of  ancestors 
differing  but  little  from  the  ape,  and  at  the 
close  of  the  lecture  the  mother  remarked  to  her 


EVOLUTION  AND  FAITH  77 

daughter,  "  How  shocking !  It  seems  to  be 
true  ;  but  let  us  try  to  hush  it  up."  For  about 
a  decade  this  was  the  task  which  many  good 
men  set  themselves.  They  wasted  much  pre- 
cious time  trying  to  hush  it  up.  They  forgot 
that  "  murder  will  out."  It  should  be  noted 
that  the  credit  of  mastering  this  new  scientific 
conception  of  nature,  of  animal  life,  and  of  man, 
and  of  bringing  it  into  harmony  with  the  per- 
manent intellectual  and  spiritual  possessions  of 
the  race,  belongs  primarily  not  to  scientific  men, 
but  to  poetic  and  religious  genius,  and  to  men 
whose  insight  is  due  to  the  discipline  of  faith. 
Tennyson  was,  perhaps,  first  on  the  field  with 
the  sword  of  the  scientific  Goliath  wrought  over 
into  the  sword  of  the  Lord.  Browning  followed 
with  the  step  and  the  spirit  of  a  conqueror.  Dr. 
Drummond  and  John  Fiske  have  done  their  best 
work  as  interpreters  of  the  larger  and  nobler  im- 
plications of  Darwinism.  Alfred  Russel  Wal- 
lace, one  of  the  brightest  scientific  names  of  the 
period,  should  be  gratefully  remembered  as  an 
exception  to  the  limitation  that  rested  upon  the 
vision  of  his  brethren.  A  host  of  thinkers  and 
writers  have  followed  these  leaders,  and  the  re- 
sult is  that  behind  the  frightful  mask  in  which 
evolution  rushed  upon  the  stage,  the  face  of  a 
friend,  the  face  of  one  sent  from  God,  has  been 
recognized.  To  achieve  this  mastery  of  a  revo- 


78  THE  QUEST  FOR  A  THEOLOGY 

lutionary  scientific  conception  within  a  quarter 
of  a  century  is,  of  itself,  a  notable  distinction 
for  one  generation  of  Christian  thinkers. 

Side  by  side  with  this,  however,  there  has 
been  a  new  theory  of  the  Bible  to  be  understood 
and  adjusted  to  faith.  The  passage  has  had  to 
be  made  from  the  letter  to  the  spirit  in  the 
mode  of  viewing  the  Bible.  The  fact  is  no 
doubt  true  that  the  smaller  Bible  has  gone  and 
the  immeasurably  greater  Bible  has  come.  But 
a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  few  could  foresee  this 
result.  To  set  aside  the  authority  even  of  the 
imprecatory  psalms  seemed  to  be  opening  the 
windows,  not  of  heaven,  for  a  second  deluge. 
To  break  up  the  Old  Testament  into  history 
and  poetry  and  legend,  to  see  in  the  history  a 
predominant  homiletical  purpose,  and  to  correct 
one  sacred  historian  by  another ;  to  canvas  the 
circle  of  prophetic  ideas,  and  to  discover  limits 
to  their  availability  for  the  modern  world ;  to 
hint  that  the  apostles  were  not  always  in  abso- 
lute agreement  with  one  another;  to  intimate 
that  Paul  becomes  deeper  and  more  adequate  in 
his  views  as  he  grows  older ;  to  cherish  the 
suspicion  of  a  possible  divergence  in  thought 
between  the  New  Testament  writers  and  Jesus 
Christ,  appeared  to  be  the  signal  of  doom  for 
the  Bible  as  the  word  of  God.  That  this  ap- 
pears so  no  longer  implies  an  immense  achieve- 


THE  BIBLE  AND  ITS  TRIAL  79 

ment.  That  the  Bible  has  emerged  from  this 
fiery  trial  a  greater  book,  is  due  first  of  all  to 
its  own  intrinsic  worth.  The  alloy  in  it  does 
not  constitute  the  gold,  and  the  removal  of  the 
alloy  only  adds  to  the  incontestable  worth  of 
the  precious  metal.  The  Bible  has  never  been 
mighty  because  of  the  human  weakness  in  it,  nor 
on  account  of  the  imperfections  that  have  gath- 
ered round  the  pure  substance  of  its  truth.  And 
the  criticism  that  has  separated  the  weakness 
from  the  power,  the  judgment  that  has  divided 
the  sheep  from  the  goats  in  it,  has  been  the 
Lord's  vindication  of  the  Bible.  But  if  it  is 
primarily  on  account  of  the  intrinsic  merit  of 
the  Bible  that  it  has  come  out  of  the  fiery  fur- 
nace of  criticism  a  more  glorious  book,  it  is  due 
to  those  who  have  managed  the  furnace  that  we 
recognize  their  faith,  their  courage,  and  their 
toil.  That  the  issue  of  this  ordeal  has  been  to 
set  Christ  on  high,  to  make  the  Bible  into  a  wit- 
ness for  the  Master,  to  turn  attention  from  even 
the  highest  literary  record  to  the  Divine  life,  to 
force  the  appeal  from  the  book  to  the  transcend- 
ent Person  from  whom  it  obtains  its  imperish- 
able meaning,  has  been  the  joyous  surprise  of 
students.  And  it  should  be  added  that  there 
was  at  the  beginning  of  this  trial  little  to  indi- 
cate the  nobler  results  that  have  been  won  to 
faith.  No  scholar  could  foresee  the  issue  of  his 


80  THE  QUEST  FOR  A  THEOLOGY 

labors.  He  went  out,  like  the  first  Hebrew,  not 
knowing  whither  he  went.  He  had  but  one  clue, 
and  it  was  enough,  his  belief  in  the  truth.  That 
truth  is  always  for  the  interest  of  religion,  that 
truth  is  forever  the  only  trustworthy  minister  of 
Christian  faith,  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  is 
the  shining  demonstration.  The  intellect  of  the 
church  said,  "  Let  us  know  the  truth  about  the 
Bible  if  the  heavens  fall."  With  that  solitary 
and  supreme  interest  as  guide,  the  toil  of  a  gen- 
eration of  scholars  has  discovered  and  declared 
the  truth  about  the  Bible,  with  the  result  that 
the  heavens  of  religious  reverence  for  the  book 
have  not  fallen,  with  the  result  that  they  are 
higher,  purer,  more  secure.  To  have  done  this, 
and  to  have  done  it  through  homage  to  truth,  is 
an  everlasting  honor  to  Christian  scholarship. 

New  philosophies  have  been  encountered.  In 
the  period  under  review  a  powerful  materialis- 
tic movement  has  been  met.  Old  Lucretius  has 
been  preached  with  all  the  master's  sincerity  and 
passion,  and  with  immeasurably  more  than  the 
master's  knowledge  by  modern  philosophic  ma- 
terialists. An  immense  agnostic  mood  has  beset 
the  church.  German  idealism  has  been  here,  to 
be  welcomed  and  to  be  feared ;  to  be  welcomed 
because  in  its  strength  Thomas  Hill  Green  has 
given  the  only  thorough  and  conclusive  answer 
to  the  Humian  individualism  that  is  the  ulti- 


MASTERY  OF  A  NEW  WORLD  81 

mate  inspiration  of  the  materialistic  and  agnostic 
mood  ;  to  be  feared  because  from  the  ambitious 
movement  of  this  essentially  noble  philosophy 
much  that  is  imperishable  in  Christian  faith  has 
had  hard  fare.  The  moods  of  the  great  thinkers 
are  sure  to  overspread  society.  Kant  and  Hegel 
have  gone  where  Calvin  and  Edwards  were  wont 
to  go.  Theology  has  made  in  Bitschl  and  his 
disciples  a  brave  struggle  —  not,  however,  with 
highly  satisfactory  results  —  to  do  its  own  think- 
ing. The  entanglement  of  Christian  theology 
with  the  dominant  philosophies  of  the  world  has 
hitherto  been  inevitable  ;  and  he  would  be  bold 
who  should  deny  that  it  has  been  providential. 
Still  theology  is  a  distinct  and  supreme  interest ; 
and  while  it  is  born  to  learn  it  is  also  ordained 
to  rule.  The  last  five-and-twenty  years  have 
thrown  open  to  the  Christian  intellect  a  new 
world.  The  mastery  of  this  new  world  has  been 
the  task  of  the  generation  now  in  power.  It 
cannot,  therefore,  seem  strange  to  the  sympa- 
thetic student  that  criticism  and  destruction  have 
been  without  corresponding  theological  construc- 
tion. The  old  temple  of  dogmatic  belief  has 
been  pulled  down,  the  foundations  have  been 
cleared  and  laid  anew  in  the  abundance  of  the 
Eternal  gospel.  The  new  building  is  still  at  an 
unsatisfactory  and  even  an  unsightly  stage  of 
erection.  Meanwhile  ministers,  with  notable 


82  THE  QUEST  FOR  A  THEOLOGY 

exceptions,  receiving  in  the  seminaries  either  a 
theology  which  afterwards  they  had  to  get  rid 
of,  or  none  at  all,  have  had  during  this  unpar- 
alleled period  to  present  their  religion  unclothed, 
or  clothed  upon  by  some  house  of  their  own  poor 
manufacture.  The  sketch  of  such  a  production 
in  times  of  great  emergency  may  not  be  alto- 
gether without  interest. 

IV 

A  friend  has  kindly  furnished  notes  of  his 
student  days  from  which  the  writer  is  able  to 
construct  what  he  thinks  is  a  typical  theological 
experience.  This  student  began  his  work  in 
theology  near  the  middle  of  the  seventies.  The 
framework  of  faith  was  the  system  of  Professor 
Park  of  Andover,  one  of  the  keenest  of  logicians 
and  one  of  the  most  accomplished  and  powerful 
of  teachers.  This  discipline  in  the  theology  of 
Professor  Park  our  student  did  not  receive  di- 
rectly from  that  master ;  he  received  it  indirectly 
through  Professor  Barbour,  a  vigorous  disciple 
and  a  noble  man.  This  theology  thus  mediated 
was  thoroughly  absorbed  by  our  friend,  who  went 
out  as  a  home  missionary  in  Maine,  believing  it 
to  be  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but 
the  truth.  After  a  year  of  preaching,  the  time 
had  come  for  an  attempt  at  a  full  academic  edu- 
cation. Harvard  University  was  chosen,  and 


IS  NOT  REALITY  IN  LIFE?  83 

our  student  felt  himself  at  once  introduced  to 
the  thought  of  the  world.  The  size  of  the  intel- 
lectual world  and  its  richness  amazed  and  de- 
lighted him.  The  great  philosophic  thinkers  of 
Greece,  France,  Great  Britain,  and  Germany 
threw  over  him  their  wonderful  fascination.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  he  had  been  introduced  to 
the  companionship  of  the  intellectual  kings  of 
mankind.  They  vexed  him  by  their  problems 
and  by  their  controversy  one  with  another,  but 
the  vexation  easily  turned  itself  into  serious  in- 
spiration. They  puzzled  him  with  a  tentative 
spirit  where  he  looked  for  a  dogmatic  one,  with 
inconclusiveness  where  he  hungered  and  thirsted 
for  certainty.  They  moved  under  the  spell  of  in- 
vestigation, happy  in  the  high  mood  of  search,  se- 
rene in  the  flow  of  their  questions,  while  he  was 
consumed  with  the  passion  for  results.  They 
brought  his  narrow  and  poorly  built  dogmatic 
world  into  confusion,  and  forced  upon  him  the 
question,  How  can  the  old  theology  live  with  the 
new  philosophy  ?  This  question  started  others. 
Is  not  reality  in  life,  in  being?  Does  not  the 
world  live  independently  of  philosophy  ?  Does 
not  the  spirit  go  in  the  strength  of  religion, 
careless  of  the  truth  or  the  error  of  any  given 
theology,  regardless  of  the  possibility  or  impos- 
sibility of  theology  ?  Is  not  the  sunlit  and  nour- 
ishing air  given  in  the  peaceful  breathing  of  the 


84  THE  QUEST  FOR  A   THEOLOGY 

healthy  child,  and  in  the  normal  life  of  a  true 
man  is  there  not  present  the  spirit  of  God  ?  May 
a  man  not  keep  reality,  even  if  for  the  time 
being  he  can  retain  no  philosophic  account  of 
it ;  may  he  not  rest  in  the  being  of  the  eternal 
silence  when  no  dogmatic  faith  is  possible  ?  Are 
not  philosophy  and  theology  priestesses  at  the 
altar  of  reality,  and  in  behalf  of  the  infinite 
meaning  that  lies  in  the  instinctive  reason,  in 
the  conscious  life  of  man  ? 

How  can  the  old  theology  live  with  the  new 
philosophy?  That  question  still  pressed  for  an 
answer.  It  led  to  another  still  more  funda- 
mental, How  does  philosophy  live?  To  this 
there  could  be  but  one  reply.  Philosophy  lives 
by  proving  itself  true,  by  adequately  accounting 
for  facts,  by  satisfying  life  with  its  interpreta- 
tions. Philosophy  lives  through  profounder  re- 
conciliation with  human  existence ;  and  against 
its  rivals  it  lives  by  the  sword  of  the  spirit.  The 
critical  construction  of  human  life,  the  critical 
treatment  of  philosophies,  is  the  business  of  phi- 
losophy and  the  process  in  which  it  exists  and 
grows.  Is  it  otherwise  with  theology?  Is  it 
anything  but  construction  through  criticism? 
Must  it  not  for  the  sake  of  its  health  stand,  like 
philosophy,  exposed  to  all  the  winds  that  blow  ? 
Is  not  a  protective  tariff  as  bad  in  theology  as  it 
is  in  philosophy  ?  Even  in  industry  it  is  a  con- 


THE  APPEAL  TO  CAESAR  85 

fession  of  weakness,  a  measure  of  safety  in  the 
interest  of  the  helpless  against  brutal  strength, 
the  function  of  the  nurse  for  the  infant.  Even 
in  trade  the  idea  of  it  as  everlasting  is  a  dis- 
grace. Can  it  be  otherwise  in  the  supreme  work 
of  mankind,  where  freedom  of  competition  and 
criticism  would  seem  to  be  essential  to  the  high- 
est product  ?  And  can  we  not  trust  the  con- 
sumer in  these  affairs  of  the  intellect  as  we  do 
the  consumer  in  trade  ?  "  You  can  fool  all  of 
the  people  some  of  the  time,  and  some  of  the 
people  all  of  the  time,  but  you  cannot  fool  all  of 
the  people  all  of  the  time."  Could  there  be,  for 
the  interests  of  philosophy  and  theology,  a  better 
platform  than  these  famous  words  of  the  greatest 
ruler  of  the  nineteenth  century? 

In  the  conflict  of  opinions  the  appeal  must 
always  be  to  Caesar.  The  problems  of  the  reason 
can  find  their  solution  only  through  the  reason. 
Philosophy  and  theology  are  alike  in  this:  they 
are  reasoned  expressions  of  certain  aspects  of 
life.  Where  they  deal  with  the  same  subject 
and  differ  they  must  fight  out  their  battle  on  the 
field  of  reason.  There  is  no  possible  excuse  for 
shielding  Augustine  or  Calvin  or  Edwards  from 
the  free  and  searching  criticism  to  which  Des- 
cartes and  Spinoza,  Locke  and  Hume,  Kant  and 
Hegel  are  subjected.  And  where  the  theologian 
and  the  philosopher  differ,  the  difference  can 


86  THE  QUEST  FOB  A  THEOLOGY 

be  justly  settled  only  in  favor  of  the  thinker 
with  the  stronger  reason  on  his  side.  The  prize 
should  go  to  the  deepest  and  most  adequate 
interpreter  of  life.  Where  philosophy  and  theo- 
logy agree  they  must  combine  against  the  two 
fundamental  enemies  of  civilization,  atheism  and 
inhumanity. 

It  will  be  seen  that  some  clearness  and  quiet 
have  come  into  the  dark  and  troubled  environ- 
ment of  our  student.  It  is,  however,  easy  to 
overestimate  the  relief  that  has  actually  arrived. 
He  has  obtained  an  immensely  wider  outlook 
upon  the  world  of  thought,  and  he  has  come  to 
a  few  conclusions  about  the  primacy  of  life  and 
the  function  of  reason  in  the  service  of  it.  But 
he  has  taken  no  decisive  steps  toward  the  recon- 
ciliation of  traditional  theology  and  historical 
philosophy.  He  sees  indeed  that  at  many  points 
they  are  in  dead  antagonism  ;  and  he  thinks  that 
the  world  should  treat  them  alike.  It  does  not 
seem  fair  to  expose  philosophy  to  the  fire  of 
criticism  and  to  cover  theology  from  that  ordeal. 
But  beyond  these  preliminaries  he  has  thus  far 
been  unable  to  go ;  and  there  is  the  imperious 
cry  of  the  spirit  that  requires  instant  attention. 
Accordingly  our  student  looks  about  him  for  a 
resource,  a  city  of  refuge,  until  these  calamities 
are  overpast.  Here  is  the  New  Testament  in 
Greek.  In  the  New  Testament  here  are  the 


FAITH  AND  PATIENCE  87 

words  of  Jesus.  They  are  not  always  certainly 
ascertainable,  embedded  as  they  are  in  the  re- 
ports of  disciples  ;  and  yet  they  are,  for  the  most 
part,  clear  and  authentic.  Rest  here  for  a  while. 
Take  this  spiritual  discipline  under  the  unques- 
tionable Master  of  the  soul.  Listen  to  the  ad- 
dress that  he  makes  to  life.  Brood  over  this 
surpassing  ethical  idealism  that  dates  itself  from 
the  heart  of  the  ethical  God.  Consider  this 
Divine  man  as  the  prophet  of  the  Highest, 
struggle  to  lay  to  heart  his  wisdom,  merge  man- 
hood in  discipleship  to  him,  lift  up  the  spirit  in 
the  joy  of  an  infinite  moral  hope,  bend  low  that 
all  the  waves  and  billows  of  his  cleansing  grace 
may  go  over  you  ;  do  this  and  wait.  Wait  upon 
the  Lord,  a  strong  city  in  the  day  of  trouble. 

"  A  mighty  fortress  is  our  God, 

A  bulwark  never  failing  ; 

Our  helper  he  amid  the  flood 

Of  mortal  ills  prevailing." 

And  under  the  shelter  of  this  Presence  let  the 
philosophic  and  theologic  discipline  go  on. 

An  emergency  has  risen  in  the  life  of  our 
student.  He  has  accepted  a  pastorate  in  Con- 
necticut. Here  is  a  pulpit  to  be  fired  with  faith. 
That  he  does  not  fear.  For  in  his  city  of  refuge 
he  has  received  the  Christian  faith  into  his 
blood,  and  in  his  joy  he  is  absolutely  without 
fear.  He  is  conscious  of  life  in  the  presence  of 


88  THE  QUEST  FOX  A  THEOLOGY 

an  infinite  spiritual  possession,  and  he  is  indif- 
ferent to  the  theological  denudation  which  he 
has  undergone.  But  here  is  an  ecclesiastical 
council  to  be  satisfied,  not  with  high  moral  feel- 
ing, generous  evangelical  appreciations,  pro- 
nounced Christian  purpose,  and  cold  neutrality 
toward  New  England  theology,  —  ready,  under 
suitable  conditions,  to  pass  into  torrid  antago- 
nism,—  but  with  definite  old-fashioned  doctrine. 
The  notes  of  our  student's  fate  at  this  stage  in 
his  progress  are  illegible  in  the  highest  degree. 
But  a  general  reflection  can  be  made  out  to  the 
following  effect,  which  may  be  of  some  interest. 
It  is  matter  of  regret  to  all  those  who  have 
been  in  mortal  danger,  and  who  have  made  good 
their  escape,  that  they  threw  away  so  much  of 
their  property  in  the  panic  of  peril.  The  apos- 
tolic ship  is  a  symbol.  In  the  exceeding  labor 
of  the  ship  in  the  storm,  overboard  went  the 
freight ;  and  the  next  day  the  tackling.  In  this 
case  it  was  wise,  because  the  ship  was  lost,  and 
might  have  been  sooner  but  for  the  precaution 
taken.  If,  however,  the  ship  had  been  saved, 
the  regrets  over  the  unnecessary  loss  of  the 
cargo  would  have  been  deep  and  lasting.  The 
theological  peril  is  nearly  always  accompanied 
by  unnecessary  indifference  to  possessions.  Tra- 
ditional beliefs  are  apt  to  seem  to  the  soul  rocked 
in  the  tempest  as  in  league  with  the  depths  that 


MAN  THE  MASTER  OF  HIS  SOUL    89 

would  engulf  all  faith  and  all  life.  And  when 
the  peril  is  past,  and  one  is  securely  at  home  in 
his  faith,  and  laboring  to  refurnish  it,  regrets 
will  come  that  so  many  useful  and  historically 
inspired  articles  should  have  been  so  foolishly 
thrown  away.  The  blue  of  the  sky  is  upon 
every  sea,  and  the  light  of  God  is  in  all  the  high 
and  serious  beliefs  of  the  Christian  church.  The 
freshness  that  the  meadow  wins  so  abundantly 
from  the  upper  air  one  will  discover  in  some 
measure  repeated  in  the  oasis  surrounded  by 
burning  sand  ;  and  the  grace  of  God  that  over- 
spreads the  New  Testament  is  sure  to  find  spots 
upon  which  it  can  rest  even  in  the  wildernesses 
of  theological  opinion. 

Our  student  has  his  regrets,  but  regrets  are 
usually  vain.  They  rarely  arrive  in  time  to  pre- 
vent unwise  action,  and  for  the  present  both 
philosophy  and  theology  are  gone.  Only  faith 
abides,  living,  tempestuous,  invincible.  Two  or 
three  definite  beliefs  serve  as  form  to  this  faith. 
Man  is  responsible  for  his  life  ;  his  power  over 
himself,  call  it  owing  to  grace  or  owing  to  will 
or  because  of  anything  else  that  you  please,  is 
indubitable.  Man  is  the  master  of  his  soul;  he 
is  the  maker  of  his  character.  By  the  grace  of 
the  universe  or  against  it,  here  is  fact.  Our 
student,  now  a  young  preacher,  went  in  the 
power  of  this  consciousness  and  in  the  fury  of 


90  THE  QUEST  FOB  A   THEOLOGY 

it ;  and  if  his  sermons  were  not  sound  there  was 
in  them  a  moral  gale.  Another  belief  was  that 
Jesus  was  the  supreme  master  of  himself,  and 
that  he  is,  on  that  account,  the  supreme  master 
of  all  who  aspire  to  put  life  under  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  moral  ideal.  Our  preacher  here 
first  learned  the  strength  of  the  Son  of  Man, 
first  felt  and  confessed  the  grace  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  first  entered  into  the  vicariousness 
of  the  supreme  human  life,  first  knew  the  com- 
fort of  an  insight  out  of  which  were  to  come  a 
new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  A  third  belief 
was  that  on  the  whole  the  universe  sides  with 
the  man  who  sides  with  righteousness.  This  is 
not  a  long  creed,  and  yet  it  is  worthy  of  all 
respect,  on  its  own  account  and  also  on  account 
of  what  may  issue  from  it.  It  is  not  an  in- 
coherent faith.  The  man  who  sees  and  feels 
that  it  is  his  vocation  to  become  the  moral  mas- 
ter of  himself  discovers  the  Christ  who  is  the 
supreme  master  of  himself,  and  who,  on  that 
account,  is  to  be  accepted  as  the  divine  guide 
to  freedom ;  and  finally  the  insight  is  obtained 
that  declares  the  universe  as  on  the  side  of 
Christ  and  his  disciple.  The  moral  idealist 
meets  the  Christ  who  is  ideal  and  real  at  once, 
and  together  they  fare  forward  in  the  sympathy 
of  the  Infinite  Idealist  who  is  at  the  same  time 
absolute  reality.  In  the  happy  possession  of 


THE  POWER  OF  GROWTH  91 

these  great  convictions,  our  student  trusts  to 
the  years,  with  their  intellectual  toil  and  their 
spiritual  obligation  and  privilege,  to  bring  into 
vision  greater  compass  and  richness  and  order 
and  sympathy. 

V 

It  is  clear  that  our  student  cannot  perma- 
nently remain  in  this  attitude.  If  his  three 
burning  convictions  are  sound,  he  must  go  on ; 
if  they  are  illusory,  they  will  speedily  exhaust 
his  interest  in  them.  Nothing  is  diviner  than 
this  test  of  time.  The  wood,  hay,  stubble,  and 
the  silver,  the  gold,  and  the  precious  stones,  are 
revealed  beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt  by  the 
day,  the  furnace  of  time  seven  times  heated. 
Stationary  truth  turns  out  to  be  not  truth  at 
all ;  the  fact  that  it  is  without  the  power  of 
growth  condemns  it.  And  the  feelings  and  in- 
stincts that  exhaust  themselves  in  the  highest 
service  that  man  can  render  to  man  are  thereby 
chargeable  with  a  certain  measure  of  falsehood. 
Somehow  they  have  passed  for  more  than  they 
are  worth.  They  have  taken  the  place  of  some- 
thing greater  than  themselves.  Their  failure, 
their  exhaustion,  should  turn  the  mind  to  that 
deeper  thing  upon  which  they  drew  for  their 
passing  strength  and  charm. 

The  meadow  that  rests  upon  the  springs  that 


92  THE  QUEST  FOR  A  THEOLOGY 

never  run  out,  and  that  lies  under  the  happy 
ministry  of  sun  and  cloud,  is  the  permanent 
basis  of  the  unbroken  succession  of  harvests ; 
and  the  soul  in  Christian  experience,  resting 
upon  God  and  open  to  his  discipline,  is  the  great 
generative  source  of  the  convictions  that  support 
the  higher  work  of  the  world.  The  soul  in  ex- 
perience is  indispensable  to  science ;  the  soul 
in  Christian  experience  is  indispensable  to  theo- 
logy. For  her  materials  science  is  dependent 
upon  the  eyes  and  the  ears  and  the  hands  ;  for 
the  sources  of  reality  she  must  go  to  the  senses. 
The  science  that  is  not  a  rational  procedure 
through  sensuous  experience  is  foolishness  ;  the 
task  of  science  is  not  that  of  an  originator  of 
facts  —  it  is  that  of  an  appraiser  of  facts.  She 
is  not  a  creator  of  material ;  her  work  lies  in 
the  endless  process  of  ever  completer  valuation. 
Theology  creates  nothing  that  has  worth  in  it. 
Abstract  theology  —  that  is,  theological  theory 
devised  apart  from  the  pressure  of  facts  —  is  sim- 
ple imposition.  It  is  a  world  of  fancy  floating 
among  realities  and  claiming  to  be  one  of  them. 
The  soul  in  Christian  experience  is.  the  founda- 
tion of  theology.  Science  without  senses  is  as 
reasonable  as  theology  without  God  in  the  pro- 
cess of  life.  The  outward  world  is  unreachable 
until  it  melts  through  the  senses  into  experi- 
ence ;  the  spiritual  world  is  unattainable  until 


THE  INTELLECT  INSTRUMENTAL         93 

it  has  dissolved  in  the  conscious  soul.  It  is 
the  heart  that  makes  the  theologian  ;  that  is,  the 
spiritual  nature  is  the  generative  source  of  the 
facts  upon  which  theology  is  to  put  its  construc- 
tion. Faith  precedes  intellect ;  that  is,  the  pro- 
cess of  the  spiritual  life  goes  before  the  know- 
ledge of  that  process.  Or  as  Saint  Schopenhauer 
says,  the  intellect  is  as  much  instrumental  "  as 
teeth  and  claws." 

Our  student  thinks  that  he  has  made  a  great 
discovery.  He  has  hit  upon  the  truth  that  the 
spiritual  world  is  unattainable  except  in  and 
through  experience.  In  order  to  be  a  great 
spiritual  thinker  one  must  first  gain  a  great 
spiritual  life.  This  suggests  several  interesting 
inquiries,  and  these  are  the  sources  of  theology, 
the  method  of  theology,  the  task  of  theology, 
and  the  helps  to  theology.  The  source  has  been 
already  indicated  as  experience  ;  but  so  far  it 
might  appear  that  this  meant  individual  experi- 
ence. It  does  mean  that,  but  it  also  means 
something  far  greater  than  that.  The  individ- 
ual is  in  society,  society  is  world-wide,  and  it  has 
an  immeasurable  history  behind  it.  Without 
their  consent  men  are  members  of  a  moral  com- 
munity ;  and  the  total  life  of  the  race  is  the 
experience  of  a  moral  race.  Morality  is  not  a 
superstructure  upon  a  prior  and  pure  physical 
basis ;  it  is  the  temper  which,  as  in  iron,  per- 


94  THE  QUEST  FOR  A  THEOLOGY 

vades  human  life.  The  physical  is  completely 
in  the  moral  sphere  because  it  is  the  inevitable 
subject  of  this  temper,  good  or  bad.  The  pri- 
mary source  of  theology  is  man,  individual, 
social,  historic,  under  inevitable  and  everlasting 
moral  organization.  This  organism  of  man  in 
the  spirit  has  operated  in  a  twofold  way.  It  has 
been  working  under  the  law  of  sin  and  death ; 
and  this  vast  and  lurid  chapter  in  the  experience 
of  mankind  is  momentous  in  its  concern.  Man 
has  gone  into  activity  under  the  law  of  the  spirit 
of  life  in  Christ ;  and  here  there  is  a  world  of 
institutions,  customs,  literatures,  to  be  studied 
as  symbolic  of  life.  Finally  there  is  the  Bible, 
the  supreme  expression  of  the  supreme  spiritual 
experience  of  mankind.  In  and  under  the  phy- 
sical life  of  the  race,  under  its  sin  and  shame, 
under  its  righteousness  and  hope,  under  the 
church  contemporaneous  and  historic,  under 
the  Old  Testament  and  the  New,  is  the  total 
spiritual  experience  of  man.  That  is  the  deep 
into  which,  through  every  symbol,  the  theologian 
must  look.  That  is  the  form  of  God,  the  pre- 
sence of  the  Infinite  with  which  he  must  reckon. 
The  old  Norse  god  thought  he  could  easily  empty 
the  horn  given  him  to  drink.  He  was  amazed 
to  find  that  after  his  mightiest  draughts  the 
horn  was  still  as  full  as  ever.  He  did  not  know 
that  below  the  lower  end  of  the  horn  lay  the 


THE  METHOD  OF  THEOLOGY  95 

sea,  the  unfathomable  sea.  Beneath  human  ex- 
perience and  filling  it  is  the  Holy  Ghost.  Men 
know  that  they  are  sinners  because  he  is  in  them. 
They  are  able  to  love  and  believe  in  righteous- 
ness on  account  of  his  indwelling.  They  are 
organized  into  homes,  societies,  nations,  and  into 
a  humanity  through  his  prevailing  persuasions. 
Great  literatures  rise  out  of  the  human  heart 
because  he  is  there ;  Bibles  are  born  through  his 
strength.  To  him  we  owe  through  human  life 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  and  the  Christian.  Jesus 
is  Lord  by  the  authority  of  the  Spirit.  And  this 
is  the  Infinite  in  human  life  and  behind  it  that 
offers  itself  to  the  heroic  purpose  of  the  theolo- 
gian. 

The  method  of  theology  is  the  endeavor  of 
the  spirit.  So  far  as  may  be,  dogma  must  be 
dissolved  in  life.  The  endeavor  to  reproduce 
the  great  moods  that  lie  behind  the  great  theolo- 
gies is  essential.  What  Paul  and  Luther  meant 
by  justification  can  be  surely  compassed  in  no 
other  way.  The  exigencies  of  the  spirit  are 
concerned  in  dogma;  and  the  dogmatic  sur- 
vivals are  almost  sure  to  be  the  more  or  less 
imperfect  utterance  of  some  precious  experience. 
Even  the  New  England  doctrine  of  willingness 
to  be  damned  for  the  glory  of  God  is  grand 
through  the  moral  idealism,  the  high  ethical  dis- 
interestedness for  which  it  stands.  In  disown- 


96 

ing  the  form  here  it  would  be  an  unspeakable 
loss  to  miss  the  spirit.  We  must  break  through 
the  form  of  the  doctrine  into  the  life  of  which  it 
is  often  a  sorrowful  memorial.  Under  the  sys- 

4/ 

tematic  exhibition  of  the  decrees  of  God,  under 
election,  atonement,  regeneration,  justification, 
and  sanctification,  under  heaven  and  hell  and 
the  whole  vast  edifice  of  traditional  theology, 
there  is  a  vital  meaning  that  one  cannot  afford 
to  miss.  Scholarship  is  presupposed  ;  the  care- 
ful and  laborious  method  of  the  thorough  stu- 
dent is  taken  for  granted.  These  are  indispen- 
sable, and  yet  they  are  insufficient.  Work  by 
the  intelligence  alone  is  barren  ;  it  can  never 
compass  the  secret  of  Christian  history.  Work 
by  the  spirit  must  be  added.  One  must  en- 
deavor to  relive  the  greater  life  of  mankind; 
one  must  endeavor  to  reproduce  the  whole  high 
experience  out  of  which  the  great  things  and 
the  small  in  theology  have  come.  Once  in  pos- 
session of  the  precious  life,  criticism  that  means 
the  death  of  immemorial  error,  and  thinking  that 
means  the  birth  of  truth,  are  possible.  Coperni- 
cus overthrew  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy  by  get- 
ting a  profounder  possession  of  the  stars.  He 
got  in  a  better  way  at  the  reality  which  the  old 
astronomer  loved  and  served  to  the  best  of  his 
ability.  The  new  astronomer  kept  the  old  real- 
ity ;  he  only  discredited  a  memorable  but  poor 


THE  TASK  OF  THEOLOGY  97 

account  of  it.  This  is  the  method  of  the  genu- 
ine theologian.  He  will  possess  himself  of  the 
spiritual  reality  of  the  world,  and  if  he  discred- 
its past  forms  of  thought,  he  will  do  it  because 
of  his  consciousness  of  the  Divine  reality  that  all 
true  servants  of  God  have  loved  and  served. 

The  task  of  theology  is  now  plain  as  it  ap- 
peared to  our  student.  It  is  to  find  the  meaning 
of  human  experience,  and  particularly  of  the 
Christian  form  of  human  experience.  It  is  the 
metaphysic  of  the  spiritual  life  of  man  in  its 
Christian  form.  Ultimate  meanings  are  the  ob- 
ject of  its  search.  And  the  search  will  be  most 
fruitfully  conducted  in  the  old  way.  There  is 
the  total  Christian  consciousness  as  found  in  our 
own  time,  as  it  appears  in  the  puritan  and  the 
reformer,  as  it  presents  itself  in  the  wonderful 
mediaeval  world,  in  patristic  achievements,  in 
apostolic  labors  and  literature,  and  above  all  as 
it  commands  our  homage  in  Jesus  Christ.  To 
supply  an  interpretation  of  this  Christian  con- 
sciousness that  shall  be  provisionally  adequate 
and  serviceable  is  the  task  of  theology.  To 
present  in  terms  of  reason  an  account  of  this 
amazing  phenomenon,  to  lift  the  precious  world 
of  Christian  life  into  a  reasonable  orderly  world 
of  meanings,  is  the  high  vocation  of  the  theolo- 
gian. He  can  fulfill  it  as  he  takes  for  his 
model  the  Hebrew  prophet  who  divined  the 


98  THE  QUEST  FOB  A  THEOLOGY 

meaning  of  the  bush  that  burned  on  the  hillside 
and  was  not  consumed,  only  after  he  had  un- 
covered and  fallen  awestruck  as  in  the  presence 
of  God. 

The  question  of  helps  has  been  answered  by 
anticipation  in  treating  of  other  points.  They 
need  be  no  more  than  named.  Old  theologies 
are  an  indispensable  help.  In  Edwards,  to  take 
a  great  example,  there  is  a  discipline  in  truth 
and  an  exhibition  of  error  that  is  nearly  invalu- 
able. To  read  Edwards  with  open  and  yet  with 
reverent  eyes,  and  to  divide  him  into  the  useless 
and  the  useful,  the  exhausted  and  the  inexhaust- 
ible, the  perishable  and  the  imperishable,  would 
be  to  compass  a  theological  education  of  the 
highest  order.  What  is  true  in  his  case  holds 
in  some  degree  of  all  the  greater  names  in  Chris- 
tian history.  Even  in  their  ashes  live  their 
wonted  fires.  But  old  theologies  must  be  supple- 
mented with  new  philosophies.  The  last  two 
centuries  have  developed  philosophic  insight  of 
amazing  range  and  richness ;  and  the  worlds  of 
ideas  upon  all  the  great  interests  of  life  lying  in 
these  philosophic  systems  cannot  be  neglected. 
If  Edwards  were  here  to-day,  he  would  make 
spoil  of  these  philosophies  in  behalf  of  his  sub- 
limer  interest,  and  would  make  himself  worthy 
of  the  title  of  celestial  thief  bestowed  upon  Mil- 
ton. The  best  science  must  not  be  overlooked. 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  CHRIST  99 

In  our  time  the  debt  to  science  on  the  part  of 
the  higher  thinking  is  immeasurable.  This  will 
continue  to  be  the  case  for  centuries  to  come, 
and  the  best  way  to  show  gratitude  for  the  gen- 
eral results  of  science,  put  at  the  disposal  of  the 
educated  world,  is  to  turn  them,  as  the  ideas  of 
force  and  evolution  have  been  turned,  to  uses 
which  seem  to  lie  beyond  the  power  of  the  scien- 
tific man  himself.  The  general  progress  of  the 
world  must  be  regarded.  There  is  in  the  world 
a  universal  movement  forward  upon  better  ends, 
and  in  consequence  a  new  atmosphere  surrounds 
the  student  and  thinker.  Above  all  one  must 
depend  upon  the  insight  and  sympathy  born  in 
the  school  of  Christ.  One  must  strive  to  have 
one's  theology  worthy  of  the  career  and  spirit  of 
Christ.  The  full  meaning  of  Christ  is  the  high- 
est theology,  and  that  full  meaning  is  the  ideal 
toward  which  the  student  should  press.  We 
may  be  sure  of  one  thing,  that  the  final  theology 
will  not  come  from  old  theologies  or  new  philo- 
sophies, it  will  not  come  from  the  schools  of 
Origen  or  Augustine,  Calvin  or  Edwards,  Kant 
or  Hegel,  although  these  great  names  and  others 
of  kindred  greatness  are  sure  to  be  remembered 
in  it ;  it  will  come  from  the  school  of  Christ. 


CHAPTER  m 
FAITH   AND   ITS   CATEGORIES 


IN  the  light  of  modern  philosophic  discussion, 
the  statement  may  safely  be  made  that  the  world 
exists  as  an  aggregate  of  individuals  in  inter- 
relations. No  individuals  exist  without  rela- 
tions. Eveiy  road  leads  from  a  beginning  to  a 
goal ;  every  stream  moves  from  its  rise  to  the 
sea.  At  both  ends,  in  the  cases  of  the  road  and 
the  stream,  and  all  the  way  between,  relations 
are  inevitably  given.  The  single  apple  recalls 
the  tree  from  which  it  was  plucked,  the  blossom 
in  which  it  began,  the  sap  out  of  which  it  grew, 
the  long  summer  and  the  solar  force  through 
which  it  was  matured.  The  particular  bird  is 
never  a  Melchizedek,  without  father,  without 
mother,  without  descent.  It  carries  in  its 
flight  the  inevitable  reminder  of  the  nest  in 
which  it  was  brooded,  the  winged  industry  by 
which  it  was  there  fed,  the  procession  of  ances- 
tors from  which  it  drew  its  life.  Its  flight  is  in 
the  sky,  and  in  its  song  there  is  a  reminiscence 
of  the  primeval  bird-melodies.  The  terms  father, 


EELATIONISM  101 

son,  brother,  friend,  citizen,  man,  when  used  of 
individual  persons,  necessarily  exhibit  these  par- 
ticular persons  in  relation.  The  human  body  is 
an  organism,  all  the  parts  are  in  mutual  rela- 
tions, everything  in  this  physical  system  is  means 
and  end  at  one  and  the  same  time.  The  part  is 
for  the  whole,  and  the  whole  is  for  all  the  parts. 
The  human  mind  is  an  organism  of  thought.  It 
is  a  multiplicity  in  unity.  Sensations,  percep- 
tions, memories,  judgments,  volitions,  all  are 
penetrated  with  feeling,  all  are  centred  in  one 
soul,  all  exist  for  it,  and  it  exists  in  and  through 
them.  Society  is  organized  in  this  way.  Indi- 
vidualism is  but  a  half  truth ;  the  other  half  is 
relationism,  the  action  and  reaction  upon  one 
another  of  the  sum  of  the  individuals.  The 
universe  is  a  reality  only  through  this  fact.  It 
consists  of  an  infinite  number  of  individuals,  in 
relation  to  one  another  and  to  their  Creator  and 
Preserver.  This  elemental  view  of  the  world  is 
strikingly  pictured  in  Tennyson's  familiar  lines, 

"  Flower  in  the  crannied  wall, 
I  pluck  you  out  of  the  crannies, 
I  hold  you  here,  root  and  all,  in  my  hand, 
Little  flower  —  but  if  I  could  understand 
What  you  are,  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 
I  should  know  what  God  and  man  is." 

This  is  an  illustration  of  my  contention  that  there 
are  no  individuals  without  relations,  without  end- 
less relations. 


102  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

It  is  equally  true  that  there  are  no  relations 
without  individuals.  No  relation  ever  walked 
down  the  street  except  in  the  form  of  an  indi- 
vidual. Individuals  are  inconceivable  out  of  all 
relations;  relations  are  inconceivable  except 
among  individuals.  To  seize  the  individual  and 
to  neglect  the  relation  is  to  find  your  trout  and 
to  forget  to  dress  and  eat  it ;  to  grasp  the  rela- 
tion and  to  ignore  the  individual  is  to  dream  of 
eating  the  fish  that  has  not  been  caught,  that 
does  not  even  exist.  Between  these  two  ex- 
tremes modern  philosophy  has  swung.  British 
individualism  has  caught  the  fish,  but  found  it 
useless  ;  German  idealism  has  in  dreams  eaten 
the  fish  that  was  still  uncaught.  The  atomism 
of  British  thought  and  the  relationism  of  Ger- 
man philosophy  must  be  combined  into  the  con- 
fession that  the  world  exists  as  an  aggregate  of 
individuals  in  interrelations.  Nothing  is  wholly 
for  itself;  nothing  can  be  anything  for  others 
unless  it  is  at  the  same  time  something  for  itself. 

What  is  knowledge  ?  If  the  world  is  a  sum 
of  individuals  in  a  community  of  relations,  what 
is  the  attitude  of  the  human  mind  to  this  world? 
Is  the  mental  world  a  creation  in  correspondence 
with  the  real  world?  Knowledge  is  of  indi- 
vidual objects  in  their  relations,  in  their  more 
significant  aspects,  in  their  universal  bearings. 
For  the  philosophy  of  knowledge  one  is  more 


THE  INFANT  MIND  103 

and  more  constrained  to  go  to  childhood.  The 
subtle  and  marvelous  process  is  best  understood 
through  insight  into  its  history.  The  infant 
has  no  consciousness  but  of  want,  no  language 
but  a  cry.  It  would  be  the  greatest  romance  in 
the  world  if  one  could  adequately  and  vividly 
picture  the  emergence  of  the  infant  mind  from 
the  awful  isolation  and  darkness  in  which  it 
comes  hither  into  the  full  society  and  light  of 
adult  existence.  It  stands  upon  one  clear  and 
firm  position,  —  physical  demand  and  supply. 
That  is  the  star  of  hope  for  the  struggling  intel- 
lect, the  prophetic  source  of  the  cosmos  that  is 
slowly  to  rise  out  of  these  endless  confusions. 
The  infant's  knowledge  probably  exists  in  the 
strangest  detachments.  Does  it  know  its  mo- 
ther? It  is  close  to  the  blasphemous  to  raise 
the  question,  and  to  say  that  the  infant  a  month 
old  certainly  does  not  know  its  mother  may  seem 
to  be  too  base  to  be  forgiven.  In  the  absence 
of  demonstration  it  is  perilous  to  say  anything 
upon  a  subject  lying  so  close  to  joy  and  pride ; 
and  yet  it  would  appear  that  what  the  child 
at  first  means  by  mother  is  a  wonderfully  com- 
forting touch,  a  strangely  soothing  sound,  a 
heavenly  but  mysteriously  fugitive  smile.  A 
delightful  sense  of  touch,  that  is  one  nameless 
benefactor  ;  a  reassuring  sound,  that  is  another ; 
a  blessed  patch  of  color,  that  is  still  another. 


104  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

At  first  these  three  flying  detachments  are  all. 
The  separate  senses  give  separate  sensations. 
Touch,  hearing,  and  sight  are  wholly  isolated ; 
and  the  friendly  world  that  looks  in  upon  the 
brave  infant  soul  struggling  in  the  dim  twilight 
is  broken  up  into  three  distinct  worlds.  At 
first  there  is  no  dream  that  the  touch  and  the 
tone  and  the  smile  belong  together,  and  that 
they  manifest  a  single  object.  A  clear  look  into 
the  infant  soul  would  probably  reveal  its  know- 
ledge as  a  series  of  sensational  abstractions.  The 
sources  of  hope  and  fear  to  the  small  existence, 
the  forces  of  help  and  of  pain,  reveal  themselves 
through  the  five  senses  ;  and  originally  there  is 
very  likely  no  association  between  these  sources 
and  forces.  Probably  the  child  has  five  distinct 
and  separate  worlds,  and  not  one.  Its  objects 
are  sensations  that  provoke  and  that  pass  under- 
standing. Flavors,  odors,  peculiar  sensations  of 
touch,  certain  tones,  patches  of  color,  make  up 
the  five  small  worlds  of  infancy.  The  day  ar- 
rives, however,  when  one  touch,  one  tone,  and 
one  smile  are  united,  held  tight,  waiting  for  a 
name ;  and  the  hour  comes  when  to  this  synthe- 
sis of  sensations,  and  to  the  benign  power  behind 
them,  the  term  mother,  or  its  equivalent,  is 
given.  Here  is  the  real  beginning  of  mental 
life,  the  grouping  of  the  various  sensations  of 
taste  and  smell  and  touch  and  hearing  and  sight, 


WHAT  IS  AN  OBJECT?  105 

not  only  as  forming  an  inward  experience  plea- 
sant or  otherwise,  but  also  as  originating  in  a 
single  source  or  object  beyond  the  mind.  The 
world  breaks  up  for  the  adult  mind  so  clearly 
and  inevitably  into  distinct  objects  —  into  grass, 
flower,  tree,  mountain,  lake,  stream,  sea ;  into 
the  forms  of  life  in  the  ocean,  in  the  earth,  and 
in  the  air ;  and  into  the  individuals  that  make 
up  human  society  —  that  it  can  hardly  imagine 
a  time  when  this  certain  order  was  not  present ; 
and  yet  it  is  evident  to  the  student  that  the 
world  of  sensational  life  evolves  itself  slowly 
and  with  extreme,  although  unremembered  diffi- 
culty into  the  world  of  distinct  objects.  What 
we  mean  by  an  object  is  a  permanent  source  of 
sensations  of  a  given  range  and  character ;  and 
the  intellectual  activity  by  which  sensations 
are  grouped  with  reference  to  their  sources  be- 
yond the  mind  is  indeed  unimaginably  great. 
The  delimitation  of  one  source  from  another  is 
a  feat  whose  mystery  has  never  been  fully  ex- 
plored. Through  the  ceaseless  repetitions  of 
experience  the  mind  comes  out  at  length  in  the 
clearness  of  its  great  achievement.  Its  own  sen- 
sational life  has  gathered  itself  about  the  out- 
ward forces  from  which  it  began  ;  it  has  referred 
itself  to  a  multitude  of  centres  beyond  itself ;  it 
has  organized  itself  into  things  that  appeal  to 
taste  and  smell  and  touch  and  hearing  and  sight; 


106  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

into  a  host  of  individual  objects  that  are  tangi- 
ble, audible,  and  colored ;  into  a  world  of  indi- 
viduals existing  in  interrelations  and  in  space 
and  in  time.  Kant's  ^Esthetic  and  Logic,  the 
first  and  second  parts  of  the  "  Critique  of  Pure 
Reason,"  are  justly  regarded  as  a  philosophic 
masterpiece,  but  that  masterpiece  is  poor  in 
comparison  with  the  feat  of  the  instinctive 
reason  in  every  child,  by  which  a  few  vagrant 
sensations  related  to  physical  want  are  developed 
and^organized  into  the  marvelous  objective  world 
of  the  adult  mind.  The  impressive  thing  about 
Greek  grammar,  for  example,  is  not  the  learn- 
ing and  judgment  of  the  grammarian  ;  but  the 
fact  that  all  these  parts  of  speech,  this  declina- 
tion of  noun  and  adjective,  this  voice,  mood,  and 
conjugation  of  verb,  this  wonderful  syntax,  should 
exist  in  living,  unconscious  reproduction  in  He- 
rodotus and  Xenophon,  in  Plato  and  Thucydides, 
and  in  the  speech  of  all  educated  persons  in  the 
Periclean  Athens.  The  work  of  the  instinctive 
reason  of  a  race  embodied  in  a  great  language, 
the  work  of  the  instinctive  reason  of  the  individ- 
ual appropriating  the  achievement  of  his  nation, 
and  employing  it  with  complete  accuracy  in  the 
careless  freedom  of  living  speech,  is  indeed  a 
marvel.  It  is  a  parallel  to  that  other  and  yet 
greater  marvel,  the  definite  world  of  individuals 
in  interrelation  into  which  man  has  organized 


THE  SPIRITUAL   WORLD  107 

his  sensational  life,  and  the  conquest  of  this 
world  which,  through  a  mystic,  unfathomable, 
and  wholly  unremembered  process,  every  child 
makes  for  itself.  Surely  one  can  view  narrowly 
neither  the  process  of  language-building  nor  that 
of  world-building  without  recalling  the  words  of 
a  great  thinker :  "  Work  out  your  own  salvation 
with  fear  and  trembling ;  for  it  is  God  which 
worketh  in  you  both  to  will  and  to  work,  for  his 
good  pleasure."  1 

But  there  is  another  world  to  be  accounted 
for,  and  another  kind  of  knowledge  to  be  con- 
sidered. The  natural  world  has  its  analogue  in 
the  spiritual,  and  the  sensational  experience  that 
ultimately  organizes  itself  into  a  world  of  natu- 
ral objects  has  its  parallel  in  the  moral  experi- 
ence that  organizes  itself  into  a  world  of  moral 
beings  centred  in  the  Supreme  moral  being. 
The  belief  is  common  that  the  individual  moral 
being  lives  in  a  world  of  moral  beings  like  him- 
self, in  a  moral  order  declaring  itself  in  human 
history  and  through  the  supporting  cosmic  envi- 
ronment, and  in  God  over  all.  Whether  one 
considers  this  world  as  real  or  as  an  illusion,  it 
is  still  a  wonderful  piece  of  architecture.  How 
did  it  arise  ?  Out  of  the  moral  life  of  mankind, 
interpreted  by  genius,  lifted  to  the  full  measure 
of  its  magnificence  by  Christ.  It  has  its  origin 

1  Philippiana  ii.  12,  13. 


108  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

in  the  individual  sense  of  moral  power  and  ac- 
countability. There  is  no  step  into  that  world 
possible  until  the  spiritual  self  has  been  discov- 
ered. That  spiritual  self,  and  its  life,  both  of 
honor  and  of  shame,  lead  outward.  The  adult 
person  in  a  well-ordered  moral  community  car- 
ries with  him  a  consciousness  so  clear  and  ma- 
ture of  the  human  fellowship  in  which  he  stands, 
that  the  achievement  which  results  in  this  amaz- 
ing consciousness  is  nearly  unrecognized.  Edu- 
cation makes  the  process  much  easier  and  shorter 
than  it  otherwise  would  be.  Education  first 
awakens  the  spirit  to  the  sense  of  itself,  and 
then  through  a  careful  process,  along  a  royal 
road  made  by  the  supreme  teachers,  it  draws  it 
on  out  of  itself  into  a  vast  community  of  spirits 
with  a  common  history  and  a  common  destiny. 
But  powerful  as  education  is,  it  is  still  nothing 
but  an  awakener.  It  cannot  force  the  process 
of  insight.  The  moral  individual  must  see  the 
next  step  before  it  can  be  taken.  For  the  indi- 
vidual there  is  no  moral  world  until  it  is  seen 
by  that  individual.  Therefore  the  architecture 
of  the  race  is  not  available  for  the  individual, 
except  as  he  is  led  to  construct  an  image  of  it 
out  of  his  own  moral  experience.  Out  of  the 
sense  of  self-respect  and  shame,  of  things  well 
done  and  ill  done,  of  accepted  standards  honored 
and  dishonored,  of  commanding  ideals  obeyed 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  CONSCIENCE        109 

and  defied,  the  individual  moral  person  is  accen- 
tuated. Thus  the  consciousness  of  moral  per- 
sonality is  heightened  until  it  becomes  the  sov- 
ereign fact  in  experience.  But  out  of  this  same 
class  of  feelings  there  is  elaborated  a  world  of 
men,  presided  over  by  the  God  and  Father  of  men. 
What  shall  I  do  with  my  conscience  ?  That 
is  the  cry  of  the  individual.  It  must  become 
the  consciousness  of  a  world  of  individuals,  each 
having  a  conscience  answering  to  his.  The  con- 
science of  our  first  individual  involves  this.  It 
overflows  the  channels  of  mere  individuality; 
it  finds  beyond  itself  a  multitude  of  moral  cen- 
tres like  itself ;  it  constitutes  itself  into  a  world 
of  moral  persons,  among  whom  it  is  one.  It 
goes  farther.  What  shall  I  do  with  my  con- 
science ?  It  must  rise  into  the  consciousness  of 
God.  The  implication  of  the  social  conscience 
and  the  individual  brings  the  individual  person 
to  the  sense  of  the  moral  world ;  the  implication 
of  the  Divine  conscience  with  the  human  brings 
the  soul  to  the  consciousness  of  God.  The  pro- 
cess by  which  the  conscience  of  the  child  be- 
comes the  consciousness  of  a  moral  world  and  a 
moral  God  is  the  subtlest,  the  deepest,  and  the 
most  amazing  in  the  life  of  man.  The  progress 
of  psychology  enables  one  to  sketch  with  some 
vividness  and  some  approach  to  truth  the  process 
by  which  the  intellect  of  the  child  becomes  a 


110  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

world  of  natural  objects ;  but  thus  far  there  is 
no  effective  help  to  deeper  and  more  faithful  in- 
sight into  the  evolution  by  which  the  conscience 
of  the  child  becomes  the  sense  of  a  community 
of  moral  persons  centred  in  a  moral  God.  And 
yet  this  evolution  of  the  child  conscience  is  the 
supreme  fact  in  human  existence.  To  this  evo- 
lution we  are  indebted  for  the  permanent  ap- 
preciation of  the  moral  world  of  Jesus,  and  for 
the  moral  God  in  whom  the  conscience  of  Jesus 
fulfilled  itself.  Here,  if  anywhere,  one  feels  that 
there  is  a  spirit  in  man,  and  that  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Almighty  giveth  him  understanding. 
Moral  humanity  is  the  building  of  God  through 
the  Spirit  and  for  the  Spirit. 

II 

The  instinctive  intellect  results  in  an  aggre- 
gate of  individual  objects  in  interrelation.  This 
bewildering  total  is  turned  over  to  the  reflective 
intellect.  In  order  to  do  anything  with  it,  it 
must  first  be  made  manageable.  Some  short- 
hand method  must  be  found  of  recording  our 
thoughts  about  it.  The  categories  are  simply  a 
shorthand  method  of  thought  in  an  infinite  world 
of  related  individuals.  The  categories  are  the 
leading  affirmations  which  philosophic  thought 
makes  about  the  world  ;  they  bring  into  view 
the  more  significant  aspects  of  things.  It  is  this 


THE  CATEGORIES  OF  THOUGHT        111 

function  of  the  categories  of  thought,  as  setting 
in  conspicuous  isolation  the  more  significant 
aspects  of  the  world,  that  makes  the  history  of 
them  a  living  interest,  and  that  lends  to  logic  a 
permanent  fascination.  Where  the  comprehen- 
sion of  everything  is  out  of  the  question,  a  se- 
lection must  be  made.  And  the  basis  of  this 
selection  is  the  fact  that  some  things  are  more 
significant  than  others.  The  world  remembers 
Shakespere,  counts  him  as  part  of  itself,  not  be- 
cause he  was  more  real  as  an  individual  than  his 
forgotten  neighbor  with  whom  he  passed  the  time 
of  day  for  a  generation,  but  because  he  was  more 
significant.  It  is  significance  that  makes  men 
great  and  memorable.  It  is  significance  that 
determines  selection  in  the  case  of  the  genuine 
historian,  the  scientific  observer,  the  philosophic 
thinker.  Our  human  world  thus  comes  to  be  a 
significant  world  called  out  from  the  infinite  and 
unmanageable  world  of  fact.  As  we  cannot  take 
all,  we  take  what  we  think  is  worthiest  and  best. 
As  has  been  said,  this  search  for  the  more  sig- 
nificant aspects  of  things  is  the  soul  of  all  think- 
ing. It  gives  life  to  the  crudest  of  the  early 
philosophers.  When  Thales  fixes  upon  water  as 
the  chief  thing  in  nature,  he  means  that  it  is  the 
most  significant.  Anaximander  dwelling  upon 
the  unlimited,  Anaximenes  preaching  the  power 
of  air,  Pythagoras  fascinated  by  the  sense  of 


112  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

order  and  harmony,  and  speaking  the  great 
word  cosmos,  Parmenides  proclaiming  the  unity 
of  being,  Heraclitus  emphasizing  the  world-pro- 
cess, the  ceaseless  becoming  of  things,  Anax- 
agoras  striking  out  the  pregnant  sentence  that 
mind  orders  the  universe,  and  Socrates  turning 
away  from  nature  to  man,  are  living  thinkers  to- 
day, in  different  degrees  to  be  sure,  because  they 
one  and  all  strive  to  isolate  what  was  to  them  the 
supremely  significant  aspect  of  the  real  world. 
We  may  not  like  their  taste,  we  may  think  their 
judgment  childish ;  and  yet  we  cannot  fail  to 
note  in  them  the  genuine  beginnings  of  the  grand 
philosophic  vocation.  They  are  after  the  things 
that  have  in  them  the  highest  meaning ;  and  if 
thinkers  to-day  are  serious  they  are  engaged  in 
the  same  great  quest. 

The  confession  of  ignorance  on  the  part  of 
Socrates  was  completely  sincere.  His  vocation 
was  to  discover  the  universally  significant  aspects 
of  man's  life,  and  he  was  puzzled  and  baffled  on 
every  hand.  He  found  a  multitude  of  shallow 
persons  calling  this,  that,  and  the  other  the  chief 
things.  He  found  men  speaking  about  temper- 
ance, courage,  friendship,  righteousness,  holiness, 
and  love  as  the  great  meanings  of  human  exist- 
ence. He  did  not  deny  that  they  spoke  the 
truth.  He  only  wanted  them  to  conduct  his 
mind  to  these  supreme  aspects  of  man's  expe- 


SOCRATES    AND    HIS    WORK  113 

rience,  and  he  discovered  that  the  teachers  who 
used  general  words  had  no  general  views.  He 
saw  that  when  they  employed  terms  which,  if 
they  mean  anything,  isolate  some  supreme  aspect 
of  life,  these  teachers  were  really  lost  in  the  in- 
dividual. To  them  all  phases  of  an  object  were 
equally  significant ;  for  them  the  individual  was 
nothing  but  an  individual.  The  dialectical  tri- 
umph of  Socrates  is  so  full  of  charm,  it  appeals 
so  strongly  both  to  admiration  and  the  sense  of 
humor,  that  one  is  apt  to  overlook  the  seriousness 
of  its  purpose.  It  is  the  exposure  of  the  mere 
pretense  of  the  possession  of  significant  views  of 
human  life.  The  exposure  of  this  pretense  was 
the  great  negative  preparation  for  the  positive 
appreciation  of  reality.  Socrates  doubtless  found 
and  rested  in  certain  highly  significant  aspects 
of  man's  world ;  but  his  work  was  not  in  pro- 
claiming these  and  in  vindicating  them.  His 
business  was  by  merciless  criticism  to  get  the 
unmeaning  and  mock  thinking  out  of  the  way. 
He  abolished  a  whole  world  of  pretense,  and  thus 
made  room  for  a  new  world  of  sincere  and  valid 
insight  into  the  nature  of  man. 

In  the  hands  of  Plato  the  categories,  or  the 
more  significant  aspects  of  reality,  expand  and 
contract  with  the  power  and  witchery  of  his  gen- 
ius. What  are  called  the  Platonic  ideas,  and 
which  are  presented  chiefly  in  the  "  Meno,"  the 


114  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

"  Phaedo,"  tbe  "  Phaedrus  "  and  the  "  Republic," 
are  nothing  but  the  highly  significant  aspects  of 
the  universe  lifted  into  independence,  made  to 
constitute  an  eternal  mental  world,  carried  up 
into  identity  with  the  Divine  thoughts  in  accord- 
ance with  which  God  creates  all  things.  This  is 
philosophic  poetry.  It  is  not  true  as  it  stands, 
and  yet  no  theist  will  deny  that  it  is  essentially 
true.  There  is  a  multitude  of  significant  as- 
pects to  the  universe ;  so  far  Plato  is  right. 
They  constitute  a  hierarchy,  ranging  from  the 
lower  meanings  that  appear  in  things  up  to 
the  highest  as  it  appears  in  the  Good,  or  in 
God.  Again  Plato  is  sound.  But  he  is  alto- 
gether wrong  in  detaching  his  world  of  mean- 
ings from  the  world  of  living  facts,  in  creating 
a  universe  of  concepts  or  thoughts,  and  of  sub- 
stituting it  for  the  reality.  For  the  living  world 
as  the  subject  of  selective  intellect,  rejoicing  over 
the  ability  to  reach  partial  appreciations,  we  find 
in  Plato  when  we  take  him  in  the  letter,  and 
not  in  the  spirit,  "  an  unearthly  ballet  of  blood- 
less categories."  Still,  as  the  matchless  poetry 
of  philosophy,  the  idealism  of  Plato  enshrines  an 
imperishable  truth.  The  task  of  the  human 
mind  is  to  discover  the  general  meanings  of  the 
world,  and  this  vocation  of  human  thought  is  set 
forth  in  the  Platonic  Dialogues  mentioned  above 
with  unexampled  fascination. 


THE  PHILEBUS  115 

In  the  later  Dialogue  of  the  "  Philebus  "  there 
takes  place  a  startling  reduction  of  this  world  of 
meanings.  Here  the  categories,  or  chief  aspects 
of  existence,  are  four.  These  are  the  unlimited, 
the  limited,  the  mixture  of  the  unlimited  and 
limited,  and  cause.  Existence  is  at  first  in- 
definite ;  in  the  process  of  being  it  breaks  up 
into  individuals,  which  become  such  by  putting 
limits  upon  the  unlimited,  and  the  force  in  and 
behind  this  process  is  cause.  This  list  of  the 
chief  meanings  of  existence  is  interesting  for 
two  reasons.  It  shows  that  Plato  is  not  satisfied 
with  the  vast  poetic  scheme  of  his  earlier  days, 
that  he  is  attempting  to  reduce  and  to  improve 
it.  And  it  indicates  that  in  the  appropriate 
mixture  of  the  unlimited  and  the  limited,  there 
lay  the  philosophy  of  "  health,  music,  harmony, 
equable  temperature,  beauty,  strength,  virtue."  1 
Thus  the  unlimited  is  pure,  indeterminate  ex- 
istence, existence  without  accentuated  signifi- 
cance. In  the  process  of  being,  existence  be- 
comes individualized,  assumes  a  special  character, 
acquires  limits.  When  the  limit  is  the  appro- 
priate limit,  there  results  the  perfect  individual 
life,  —  flower,  animal,  man ;  there  results,  too, 
the  perfect  art,  —  music,  harmony,  beauty ;  there 
results,  finally,  the  perfect  character,  —  tempera- 
ment, strength,  virtue.  The  imperfections  of 

1  Dr.  Jacksoii,  Journal  of  Philology,  vol.  x. 


116  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

the  world  are  due  to  the  union  of  the  unlimited 
with  the  inappropriate  limit.  The  badness  of 
the  world  comes  from  a  mixture  wholly  bad  of 
these  two  fundamental  forces.  And  the  cause 
that  works  toward  the  perfect  union  of  unlimited 
and  limited  is  creative  mind.  One  can  see  how 
significant  these  four  strange  ways  of  looking  at 
the  universe  were  to  Plato. 

Aristotle  did  not  like  the  earlier  thought  of 
Plato  about  the  chief  ways  of  regarding  ex- 
istence, mainly  for  two  reasons.  It  was  a  sys- 
tem in  the  clouds,  a  poetic  symbol ;  and  it  did 
not  help  forward  the  appreciation  of  the  real 
world.  Both  objections  are  valid.  Aristotle 
was  compelled,  therefore,  to  discover  the  cate- 
gories for  himself.  He  found  his  principle  of 
discovery  in  the  several  things  that  one  can  say 
of  an  individual  being.  It  exists ;  existence, 
therefore,  is  one  way  of  looking  at  things.  It 
exists  in  a  certain  measure  and  in  a  given  man- 
ner ;  magnitude  and  character,  therefore,  are  as- 
pects of  reality.  It  exists  in  relation,  in  place, 
and  in  time ;  relation,  place,  and  time  are,  there- 
fore, further  categories.  It  is  possessed  or  it 
has  possession ;  it  is  active  or  it  is  passive ; 
these  are  still  further  ways  of  regarding  things. 
"  Everything  signifies  either  existence,  or  quan- 
tity, or  quality,  or  relation,  or  place,  or  time,  or 
position,  or  possession,  or  action,  or  passion."  1 

1  Organon,  Categories,  iy. 


ARISTOTLE'S    CATEGORIES  117 

Such  are  the  famous  ten  categories  of  Aristotle, 
or  the  significant  aspects  of  things. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  criticise  the  scheme. 
Why  should  Aristotle  think  of  things  in  ten 
ways  and  in  no  more?  No  answer  is  given;  none 
can  be  given  that  shall  be  adequate.  Clearly 
also,  his  ways  of  looking  at  things  run  into  one 
another.  They  are  not  distinct  in  several  in- 
stances. Place,  time,  position,  action  and  passion 
are  given  as  independent  aspects  of  existence, 
and  yet  it  is  clear  that  they  are  only  different 
forms  of  the  category  of  relation.  Being  in 
relations ;  to  this  the  entire  scheme  is  reducible. 
But  while  inadequate,  the  thought  underlying 
the  scheme  is  deeply  interesting.  Here  is  one 
of  the  greatest  of  human  minds  at  work  in  the 
morning  of  philosophic  endeavor,  when  little 
had  been  satisfactorily  done  anywhere,  and  all 
high  undertakings  were  new,  searching  for  the 
supremely  significant  aspects  of  the  world.  That 
the  search  was  not  a  success  should  neither  de- 
crease admiration  for  the  clear  adventure  of  the 
great  thinker,  nor  diminish  the  inspiration  that 
comes  from  the  worthy  representation  of  one 
high  aspect  of  the  vocation  of  man. 

Kant  expanded  the  ten  categories  of  Aristotle 
to  twelve.  Upon  this  table,  deduced  from  the 
forms  of  the  judgment,  Kant  bestowed  immense 
labor.  And  regarded,  as  we  have  regarded 


118  FAITH  AND  ITS   CATEGORIES 

other  attempts,  as  a  new  endeavor  in  happier 
circumstances  to  discover  the  chief  meanings  of 
the  world,  and  to  reduce  to  order  the  different 
ways  in  which  the  mind  looks  at  it,  thanks,  and 
only  thanks,  are  due  Kant  for  his  work.  That 
it  has  proved  less  complete  than  he  esteemed  it 
is  not  strange.  In  the  heat  of  creation  every 
poem,  every  philosophic  achievement,  seems  to 
its  author  great  and  final.  It  is  only  the  Lord 
who  can  look  at  everything  that  he  has  made 
from  the  dispassionate  mood  of  history  and  pro- 
nounce it  good ;  and  he  can  do  it  only  because 
his  perfect  ideal  is  ceaselessly  realizing  itself 
through  endless  opportunity. 

Hegel  is  the  last  great  elaborator  of  the  cate- 
gories. He  has  shown,  as  no  one  has  ever  done, 
and  chiefly  because  he  has  worked  by  the  light 
of  all  his  predecessors,  that  the  universe  is  a 
system  of  meanings,  that  this  system  of  mean- 
ings is  in  reality  sunk  in  it  like  a  network,  and 
that  reality  is  in  this  system.  The  task  of  Hegel 
is  to  evolve  from  the  Absolute  meaning  the  entire 
system  of  meanings,  and  thus  to  exhibit  the  in- 
most heart  of  reality  and  the  process  of  its  life. 
If  Hegel  has  failed,  it  is  because  the  task  is  too 
much  for  man.  If  he  has  failed,  his  failure  has 
yet  filled  the  world  with  new  insights.  The 
sense  of  meaning  in  the  universe  is  stronger  in 
all  genuine  thinkers  because  of  Hegel,  and  the 


INEVITABLE   AND    INCOMPLETE       119 

growth  of  these  meanings  into  an  ampler  and 
surer  order  is  due  largely  to  his  influence.  He 
is  the  only  modern  who  is  strong  enough  to  be 
ranked  with  the  two  great  names  of  Greece; 
and  he  is  the  worthiest  successor  to  them  in  the 
philosophic  vocation. 

This  review  of  the  endeavor  on  the  part  of 
philosophers  to  discover  the  chief  ways  of  look- 
ing at  the  real  world  has  made  clear  these  two 
things :  the  movement  is  inevitable ;  it  is  pri- 
marily a  movement,  not  in  philosophic,  but  in 
human  reason.  The  world  of  individuals  in  all 
their  interrelations  is  too  vast  for  man.  The 
selective  process  must  be  applied  to  it.  A  gra- 
dation of  values  clearly  exists  in  it.  Everything 
is  not  as  significant  as  everything  else.  Upon 
this  perception  the  human  mind  works ;  it  pro- 
ceeds to  discover  in  the  endless  real  world  the 
world  chiefly  significant  for  man.  Of  this  in- 
evitable human  movement  the  historic  search  for 
the  categories  is  the  philosophic  representation. 
The  movement  is  inevitable,  and  it  is  inevitably 
incomplete.  The  endless  real  world  concerns 
man  more  deeply  than  he  knows ;  and  the  dis- 
covery of  this  deeper  significance  of  the  real 
for  mankind  upsets  all  the  tables  of  categories 
Platonic,  Aristotelian,  Kantian,  and  Hegelian. 
The  movement  in  search  of  the  chief  meanings 
of  being  is  inevitable,  and  it  is  inevitably  sub- 
ject to  revision  and  expansion. 


120  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

III 

The  instinctive  intelligence  results  in  the  in- 
finite world  of  faith,  and  this  world  it  hands 
over  to  the  reflective  intelligence  for  profounder 
appreciation.  The  selective  process  must  be 
applied  to  this  world.  In  its  grand  totality  it 
passes  understanding.  In  it  God  is  involved 
with  the  human  spirit,  with  the  human  race, 
through  a  vast  historic  movement.  The  reli- 
gious soul,  the  religious  community,  is  rooted 
and  grounded  in  the  Infinite  love.  That  unseen 
grasp  upon  God  sinks  downward  and  spreads 
abroad  in  a  way  that  is  past  finding  out.  The 
comprehension  of  Christianity  as  the  life  of  the 
world  is  out  of  the  question.  It  is  as  much 
beyond  theology  as  the  comprehension  of  the 
natural  world  is  beyond  science.  All  that  is 
possible  for  theology  is  the  appreciation  of  the 
more  significant  aspects  of  the  world  of  Christian 
faith.  Everything  in  faith  is  not  of  equal  value 
with  everything  else.  A  gradation  of  values  is 
perceived  in  the  Bible,  in  Christian  experience, 
in  the  career  of  Christ,  in  the  revelation  of  God 
in  Christ.  In  this  infinite  total  those  things 
that  most  concern  Christian  faith  are  discov- 
ered ;  they  are  called  out,  and  constituted  into  a 
world  by  themselves.  Our  world  of  intelligent 
faith  is  a  world  made  out  of  the  infinite  world 


THE    OLD    TESTAMENT  121 

of  Christian  reality.  The  Old  Testament  is  an 
example.  It  was  written  by  different  men  in 
definite  but  widely  divergent  circumstances  over 
a  period  of  nearly  a  thousand  years.  Each  writ- 
ing of  which  the  Old  Testament  is  composed 
had  a  definite  meaning  for  the  time  in  which  it 
was  written.  The  collection  had  an  elastic  and 
yet  a  well-defined  significance  for  the  leaders  of 
Israel  in  her  later  years.  And  it  is  true  that 
for  a  century  the  increasing  effort  of  Hebrew 
scholarship  has  been  to  restore  this  local  color- 
ing of  time,  place,  person,  and  original  intention. 
Some  success  has  doubtless  attended  this  toil. 
But  after  all,  the  Old  Testament  in  the  times, 
places,  persons,  and  purposes  of  its  original  com- 
position is  beyond  the  reach  of  research,  and  if 
it  were  open  to  research  it  would  still  remain 
beyond  comprehension.  That  old  world  in  which 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  originated  has  vanished, 
not  in  the  sense  of  ceasing  to  be,  but  in  that  of 
having  passed  beyond  our  mental  horizon.  It 
lives,  but  it  lives  in  God.  It  lives  in  the  sum 
total  of  religious  reality ;  it  is  "  lost  in  God,  in 
Godhead  found."  The  Old  Testament  of  to-day 
is  a  book  highly  significant  for  the  modern 
world ;  and  the  essential  task  of  scholarship  is 
to  develop  these  points  of  significance  into  lines. 
All  that  scholarship  can  give  is  the  modern 
meaning  of  the  Old  Testament  rooted  in  the 


122  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

ancient  meaning.  The  same  thing  may  be  said 
of  Shakespere,  Dante,  Homer.  The  result  of 
scholarship  never  amounts  to  more  than  the 
clear  genesis  of  the  modern  appreciation  from 
the  original  intention.  The  classic  is  distin- 
guished by  its  permanent  susceptibility  to  mod- 
ern appreciation.  If  one  could  know  everything 
significant,  the  fact  that  any  writing  once  meant 
something  for  somebody  would  be  sufficient  in- 
ducement for  one  to  read  it.  But  since  one  can 
know  only  a  few  things,  the  literature  of  the 
past  that  has  an  accentuated  susceptibility  to- 
ward modern  appreciation,  alone  has  a  title  to 
one's  attention.  All  this  goes  to  illustrate  the 
selective  process  applied  to  reality.  It  is  meant 
to  show  that  men  live  in  a  world  of  values,  found 
indeed  in  the  real  world,  constituting,  too,  its 
more  significant  aspects,  but  called  out  from  it 
for  the  service  of  life. 

This  is  the  true  point  of  view  from  which  to 
ascertain  both  the  merits  and  defects  of  the 
great  theological  tradition  that  has  come  down 
to  us.  Never  in  its  saner  moments  did  it  ven- 
ture to  identify  itself  with  the  life  of  God  in  the 
world  and  in  the  church.  Its  saner  moments 
became  few  and  far  between ;  but  it  would  seem 
to  be  just  to  hold  historic  theology  to  those  lucid 
intervals  when  the  work  of  man  knew  itself  as 
infinitely  beneath  the  work  of  God.  The  study 


AUGUSTINE  123 

of  historic  theology,  in  the  mood  into  which  it 
fell  in  evil  days,  of  identifying  certain  proposi- 
tions agreed  to  by  a  majority  of  the  members  of 
a  council,  sometimes  from  one  class  of  motives 
and  sometimes  from  another,  is  a  discipline  in 
disgrace.  To  be  sure,  here  also  the  way  of  the 
cross  is  the  way  of  light,  and  this  via  dolorosa 
must  be  covered.  The  higher  mood,  however, 
is  that  in  which  to  find  the  meaning  of  historic 
theology.  In  reading  Origen  one  sees  an  in- 
tellect confronting  a  real  spiritual  world,  con- 
fessing its  immeasurable  magnitude,  and  girding 
up  the  Joins  of  his  mind  that  he  may  call  atten- 
tion to  a  number  of  its  leading  aspects.  If  we 
think  of  the  long  succession  in  this  way,  their 
work  will  have  an  abiding  interest,  and  they 
will  no  longer  arrest  or  mislead  the  Christian 
intellect. 

The  strength  of  Augustine  is  apparent  when 
one  thinks  that  for  about  fifteen  hundred  years 
he  has  supplied  the  categories  to  Christian 
thought.  From  Augustine  to  Nathaniel  Taylor 
there  are  few  fundamental  differences  in  the  lead- 
ing theological  tradition.  The  general  mould 
in  which  thought  was  cast  is  the  same.  Pre- 
destination, depravity,  atonement,  regeneration, 
and  perseverance  in  the  life  of  the  spirit  are 
the  common  possession.  The  five  points  of 
Calvinism  date  from  the  five  points  of  Augus- 


124  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

tinianism,  and  they  become  the  centres  round 
which  Puritan  theological  discussion  both  in 
Great  Britain  and  in  this  country  rages.  It 
was  a  great  achievement  thus  to  indicate  for 
fifteen  centuries  of  Christian  thought  the  points 
of  high  concern  in  the  world  of  faith.  There  is 
no  better  way  of  discovering  the  essential  con- 
tribution of  any  historic  thinker  than  by  asking 
what  he  had  to  say  about  the  five  points.  To 
study  him  under  the  Augustinian  categories  is 
as  sure  a  way  as  any  to  find  his  place  in  the 
succession  and  to  estimate  the  value  of  his  ser- 
vice. These  five  categories  are  the  supremely 
significant  aspects  of  the  Christian  world  as  it 
appeared  to  these  historic  thinkers.  Their  theo- 
logies are  appreciations  of  reality  ;  when  studied 
as  such  they  will  be  found  worthy  of  the  admira- 
tion in  which  they  have  been  held,  for  order 
and  for  fruitful  thought. 

The  sense  of  their  merit  is  best  seen  from  this 
point.  Predestination  is  of  fundamental  im- 
portance. It  expresses  the  sense  of  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  Infinite  will  in  relation  to  the  finite 
will,  and  in  relation  to  the  universe.  No  cate- 
gory of  thought  could  go  deeper,  none  could  be 
of  higher  moment.  Depravity  deals  with  the 
assertion  of  the  finite  will,  in  the  individual  and 
in  the  race,  against  the  Infinite  will.  Here 
surely  is  an  aspect  of  reality  that  cannot  be 


THE  HISTORIC  CREED  125 

ignored.  Atonement  is  the  utterance,  in  the 
sacrificial  career  of  Jesus  Christ,  of  the  Infinite 
will  as  the  ground  of  reconciliation  for  man 
with  himself  and  with  the  universe.  Regener- 
ation is  the  reinstatement  in  authority  of  the 
spiritual  will  in  man.  Perseverance  stands  for 
the  optimism  of  the  ancient  creed.  It  is  a  de- 
claration of  the  persistence  and  ultimate  victory 
of  the  spiritual  will.  Thus  the  five  categories 
are  concerned  with  five  vital  and  fundamental 
aspects  of  the  world  of  faith.  They  are,  one 
and  all,  a  treatment  of  will,  and  an  emphasis 
upon  will  as  the  core  of  reality.  In  predestina- 
tion the  Absolute  will  is  the  object  of  thought ; 
in  depravity  the  human  will,  individual  and 
racial,  receives  attention ;  in  atonement  there  is 
a  return  to  the  Absolute  will  as  suffering  love  ; 
in  regeneration  and  in  perseverance  the  will  of 
man  is  again  the  point  of  concern.  Philosophy 
has  tended,  for  a  century,  to  emphasize  will  in 
the  universe  and  in  man  as  the  central  reality. 
This  profounder  insight  into  the  supremacy  of 
will  in  the  constitution  of  being  is  a  new  and 
permanent  bond  of  sympathy  between  the  an- 
cient creed  and  the  modern.  The  logical  evo- 
lution of  the  Augustinian  categories  may  well 
excite  admiration.  They  are  not  isolated  and 
vagrant  insights  into  truth,  fundamental  but  un- 
related affirmations.  The  general  theme  is  will ; 


126  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

the  original  position  is  the  Infinite  will;  the 
movement  from  this  is  in  the  treatment  of  will, 
the  will  of  man  successively  manifested  against 
God  as  in  depravity,  in  reconciliation  to  God 
on  the  basis  of  atonement  as  in  regeneration,  in 
the  assurance  of  progress  and  eventual  rest  in 
God  as  in  perseverance.  This  much  can  be  said 
for  the  Augustinian  categories,  —  they  deal  with 
fundamental  reality,  and  they  deal  with  it  in  a 
profoundly  vital  and  orderly  manner. 

The  traditional  theology  is,  however,  broken 
upon  its  own  wheel.  Its  limitations  and  its  posi- 
tive errors  clearly  appear  in  the  light  of  its  own 
categories.  Predestination  expresses  the  rela- 
tion of  the  Absolute  will  to  the  universe  and  to 
mankind.  But  the  Absolute  will  is  absolute  in 
goodness ;  therefore  the  deduction  that  God  is 
on  the  side  of  some  men  and  against  others  is  an 
illogical  deduction.  The  derivation  from  this 
will  of  absolute  goodness  of  two  decrees,  one  of 
salvation  for  a  certain  portion  of  mankind,  and 
another  of  reprobation  for  the  rest  of  the  human 
race,  is  a  supreme  instance  of  bad  logic.  Doth 
the  same  fountain  send  forth  sweet  water  and 
bitter  ?  Can  a  good  tree  bring  forth  evil  fruit, 
or  a  corrupt  tree  good  fruit  ?  The  milder  pre- 
destinationism  is  no  better  except  in  words. 
The  reference  to  the  Infinite  will  of  an  eternal 
passion  to  save  a  given  number  of  souls,  and  of 


INCONSISTENCIES  127 

complete  indifference  to  the  remainder,  is  the 
same  logical  error  over  again.  It  is  another  case 
of  fundamental  discrepancy  between  the  pre- 
mises and  the  conclusion.  If  predestination  is 
to  remain  as  an  expression  of  the  relation  of  the 
Divine  will  to  all  things  and  to  all  men,  it  must 
be  cleared  of  its  fatal  historic  inconsistencies.  It 
must  express  the  will  that  is  never  at  war  with 
itself,  that  is  always  and  only  on  the  side  of 
every  soul  that  it  has  made. 

The  same  errors  and  limitations  appear  in  the 
ancient  creed  in  the  treatment  of  the  remaining 
categories.  The  truth  upon  which  the  old  think- 
ers laid  hold  in  their  doctrine  of  depravity  is 
greater  than  their  vision  of  it ;  the  human  will, 
individual  and  racial,  has  emerged  for  new  con- 
sideration. The  old  insights  must  be  revised 
and  absorbed  in  the  larger  knowledge  and 
sounder  vision  of  to-day.  Atonement  is  not  less 
but  infinitely  more  than  the  historic  discussions 
would  seem  to  indicate.  The  need  of  reconcili- 
ation in  man  is  universal.  It  is  a  human  neces- 
sity ;  and  reconciliation  other  than  upon  the 
basis  of  the  good-will  of  God  there  can  be  none. 
The  relation  of  the  ideal  ethical  career  of  Jesus 
to  the  Absolute  will  waits  for  appreciation  from 
those  whom  God  has  trained  to  see  that  the 
highest  thing  that  can  be  said  even  about  Christ 
is  that  in  the  magnitude  of  his  being  he  was 


128  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

completely  dutiful.  The  plan  of  reconciliation 
is  in  the  Absolute  will ;  the  method  of  its  expres- 
sion is  in  the  complete  and  conscientious  love  of 
Jesus  Christ ;  the  manner  of  its  operation  is  in 
the  demonstration,  through  the  apostolical  suc- 
cession of  holy  lives,  of  the  Spirit.  Regenera- 
tion tries  to  cover  a  truth  with  a  metaphor.  The 
truth  here  is  altogether  greater  than  its  tradi- 
tional symbol.  The  Spirit  in  man  needs  to  be 
reinvested  with  authority;  but  it  is  alive  even  in 
disaster.  The  optimism  of  the  ancient  thought, 
expressed  in  the  perseverance  of  the  saints,  is  a 
pathetic  optimism.  We  can  trust  God  for  greater 
things  than  that. 

Another  criticism  that  must  be  made  upon 
the  traditional  creed,  in  the  light  of  its  own 
categories,  has  reference  to  its  gnosticism.  It 
claimed  to  know  too  much.  It  was  not  satisfied 
with  the  designation  of  the  ethically  perfect  re- 
lation of  God's  will  to  mankind ;  it  must  work 
up  a  system  of  Divine  decrees  ;  and  this  system 
could  be  nothing  other  than  the  dismal  reflec- 
tion of  its  own  mental  limitation  and  its  ethical 
immaturity.  It  was  not  satisfied  with  general 
views  of  the  process  of  salvation ;  it  went  into 
detail,  and  elaborated  an  order  that  only  om- 
niscience could  support.  Thus  over-confidence, 
vaulting  ambition,  touched  with  death  the  whole 
unreal  structure.  Thus,  too,  all  the  fascination 


THE  MOTIVE  OF  THEOLOGY  129 

that  goes  with  a  modest  order  of  great  thoughts 
was  lost,  and  the  high  poetry  that  is  the  soul 
of  religion  was  rigidly  excluded.  There  are 
few  things  more  unreal  than  the  swollen  bodies 
of  historic  divinity,  and  few  things  less  lovely. 
The  old  theological  system  encounters  two  fatal 
antagonists,  —  the  sense  of  truth  and  the  feeling 
for  art. 

Two  conclusions  would  appear  to  follow  from 
this  review.  Theology  is  a  necessity  of  the  re- 
ligious intellect ;  for  faith,  categories,  general 
affirmations,  significant  aspects  of  reality  are 
inevitable.  The  theological  toil  of  Christian 
history  is  in  response  to  an  irresistible  impulse. 
The  total  world  of  faith  is  incomprehensible  ;  it 
involves  humanity,  it  includes  the  universe,  it 
implicates  the  Deity.  In  the  presence  of  this 
infinite  world  the  Christian  intellect  awakes  to 
power.  The  task  that  confronts  it  is  over- 
whelming. Nothing  can  be  done  with  this 
infinite  world  as  infinite.  Selection  must  be 
applied  to  it ;  its  highest  values  must  be  found, 
called  out,  and  set  in  an  order  by  themselves. 
This  is  the  motive,  this  is  the  achievement,  of 
historic  theology.  It  is  pressed  by  the  sense 
of  the  incommensurateness  that  exists  between 
the  whole  reality  and  its  own  capacity  to  seek 
only  the  highest  values  ;  and  its  consciousness 
of  the  highest  values  is  on  record.  That  record 


130  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

is  historic  theology.     It  is  an  achievement  in 
answer  to  an  impulse  that  cannot  be  denied. 

But  if  this  process  of  theology  is  inevitable, 
it  is  also  inevitably  incomplete.  If  it  is  certain 
that  the  Christian  intellect  must  endeavor  to 
discover  and  set  in  order  the  more  significant 
aspects  of  faith,  it  is  also  certain  that  these  as- 
pects will  grow  upon  thought  into  an  ever  greater 
order.  The  criticism  that  one  is  compelled  to 
make  upon  traditional  theology  is  the  glory  of 
the  world  of  faith.  It  is  a  fundamental  witness 
to  its  vastness,  and  to  the  growing  sense  of  its 
preciousness.  A  new  theology  is  essential  to  set 
forth  the  new  values  discovered  in  the  Eternal 
gospel.  The  new  categories  of  faith  are  affir- 
mations of  the  larger  meanings  that  have  been 
found  in  faith.  The  sum  of  the  reality  is  sub- 
ject neither  to  addition  nor  subtraction  ;  that  is 
the  work  of  God.  But  the  significant  apprecia- 
tion of  this  unchangeable  reality  admits  of  wide 
variation.  In  fact  it  exists  all  the  way  from 
the  vagrant  insights  of  the  apostolic  fathers  to 
the  highest  theological  mind  of  the  ancient  and 
of  the  modern  church.  With  an  Infinite  reality 
to  study,  it  is  evident  that  the  process  of  signifi- 
cant appreciation  can  never  be  complete.  Theo- 
logical thought  is  therefore  inevitable,  and  it 
is  inevitably  incomplete.  The  vocation  of  theo- 
logy is  to  perfect  her  significant  appreciations  of 


THE  PRESENT  SCHEME  131 

Christian  reality,  to  carry  them  up  into  the  com- 
plete comprehension  of  reality,  to  lift  them  into 
an  image  of  the  self-conscious  intelligence  that 
has  become  the  equal  of  the  process  of  God  in 
the  life  of  mankind.  That  is  the  ideal ;  and  the 
pursuit  of  it  makes  every  achievement  provi- 
sional. We  think  in  the  interest  of  life ;  and 
when  life  calls  for  the  revision,  the  expansion,  or 
the  expulsion  of  our  thought,  we  should  always 
be  ready  to  answer  that  call. 

IV 

The  scheme  that  is  advanced  in  this  book  has 
several  things  that  may  be  said  for  it.  It  is 
reasonably  modest.  It  does  not  beg  pardon  for 
being,  and  it  does  not  profess  to  understand  all 
mysteries.  It  is  at  least  founded  upon  a  valid 
conception,  the  incommensurateness  between 
Christian  reality  and  Christian  intelligence  whose 
parallel  is  the  incommensurateness  between  the 
material  universe  and  science.  Here  the  truth 
of  God  is  held  to  be  essentially  independent  and 
transcendent,  and  theology  is  a  self-renewing 
order  of  less  inadequate  appreciations.  The  re- 
ligion of  Jesus  is  primarily  a  process  in  the  in- 
stinctive reason  of  his  disciples.  This  process 
is  subject  to  the  reflective  reason,  and  yet  it  is 
too  vast  and  subtle  to  be  comprehended  by  it. 
The  being  of  social  man  in  the  social  God  is  the 


132  FAITJI  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

aboriginal  interest ;  and  for  the  philosophic  mind 
at  this  stage  of  development,  this  aboriginal  in- 
terest as  a  whole  is  past  finding  out.  We  are 
greater  than  we  know ;  and  by  this  transcend- 
ent reality  in  being  theology  is  forever  allured 
and  baffled.  The  task  of  theology  has  never 
been  better  defined  than  in  the  words  of  Paul, 
—  "to  know  the  love  of  Christ  which  passeth 
knowledge."  * 

The  provisional  scheme  here  advanced  iden- 
tifies theology  with  fundamental  aspects  of  re- 
ality. Herein  it  seeks  to  revive  the  great  tra- 
ditiou  that  has  come  down  to  us.  The  Greek 
theology,  as  summed  up  in  Clement,  in  Origen, 
and  in  Athanasius,  deals  with  supreme  problems. 
In  its  five  categories  we  have  seen  that  Augus- 
tinianism  is  cardinal.  Edwards  is  great  because 
of  his  grasp  upon  fundamental  aspects  of  the 
world  of  faith.  In  an  era  of  rich  and  fascinating 
scholarship  one  needs  to  be  recalled  to  this  high 
tradition.  The  reformation  of  the  Christian  in- 
tellect in  knowledge  —  that  has  been  the  object 
of  scholarship  for  a  generation.  This  object  is 
not  only  worthy ;  it  is  also  indispensable.  But 
the  reformation  of  the  Christian  intellect  in  his- 
torical and  literary  knowledge,  while  it  makes 
possible  the  task  of  theology,  leaves  it  unaccom- 
plished. That  task  is  the  reorganization  of  the 

1  Ephesians  iii.  19. 


COHERENCE  OF  IDEAS  133 

Christian  intellect  in  thought.  And  this  reor- 
ganization should  be  in  fundamental  thought. 
Theology  should  no  longer  permit  its  living  in- 
terests to  be  swamped  in  the  debris  of  unimpor- 
tant detail.  The  greater  aspects  of  faith  should 
stand  apart  from  the  mass  of  minor  things.  The- 
ology has,  too  often,  been  overwhelmed  with  ar- 
tificial discussions.  It  has  lost  touch  with  reality 
and  has  aspired  to  become  something  on  its  own 
account.  The  demon  of  system  has  thus  pos- 
sessed it,  and  in  this  mood  it  has  with  prodigious 
labor  and  endless  ingenuity  spun  itself  into  a 
world  of  wearisome  and  even  monstrous  detail. 
This  demon  must  be  cast  out.  Theology  must 
be  made  to  know  that  she  is  nothing  for  herself 
by  herself ;  all  that  she  is  for  herself  she  be- 
comes through  her  service  to  life.  And  the 
vaster  values  of  this  life  set  in  the  life  of  God 
it  is  the  business  of  theology  to  find  and  to  put 
forth  in  order. 

There  is  coherence  among  the  conceptions  out- 
lined in  this  volume.  The  aspects  of  reality 
are  significant,  and  they  are  graded  up  to  the 
Supreme  significance.  The  ideas  discussed  are 
in  each  case  ultimate,  and  they  constitute  an  as- 
cending series  terminating  in  the  Absolute  ulti- 
mate. Personality  is  viewed  as  the  individual 
ultimate  ;  it  is  the  most  significant  aspect  of  the 
individual  life.  It  is  the  last  phase  into  which 


134  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

the  single  human  being  can  be  resolved.  Abolish 
this  view,  and  the  individual  is  nothing ;  con- 
serve it,  and  a  fruitful  beginning  for  thought  has 
been  found.  Humanity  is  regarded  as  the  social 
ultimate.  The  reality  of  the  individual  calls  for 
the  definition  of  the  whole  to  which  he  belongs. 
Is  this  in  class  or  caste  or  nation  or  race,  or  in 
mankind  ?  Optimism  is  advanced  as  the  histori- 
cal ultimate.  Historical  ultimate  of  one  kind  or 
another  there  must  be.  And  it  must  be  either 
optimism  or  pessimism.  From  what  has  been 
and  from  what  is,  it  is  open  to  anticipate  what 
will  be.  Upon  the  basis  of  insight  some  things 
may,  thus  early  in  the  historic  process,  be  said 
in  favor  of  optimism.  Christ  is  the  religious 
ultimate ;  he  appears  in  the  religious  world  as 
the  supreme  insight  and  love,  the  highest  ex- 
pression of  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  Infinite  in 
reference  to  man.  The  moral  universe  is  the 
universal  ultimate,  and  as  the  environment  of 
the  moral  process  in  history  it  is  of  inexpressible 
moment.  God  is  the  Absolute  ultimate,  the 
ground  of  man's  world,  the  life  of  it  and  the 
hope  of  it.  Each  of  these  ultimates  faces  an  an- 
tagonist equally  fundamental.  It  is  personality 
against  non-personality,  humanity  versus  class 
and  caste  and  endless  divisions.  The  conflict  is 
between  the  strong  angel  of  optimism  and  the 
powerful  demon  of  pessimism.  Christ  and  anti- 


EVOLUTION  FROM  GOD  135 

christ  are  here  in  deadly  combat.  The  concep- 
tion of  a  moral  universe  has  to  meet  and  reckon 
with  the  counter  conception  of  a  universe  indif- 
ferent to  all  conscience  and  love.  Finally  it  is 
either  theism  or  atheism.  Pantheism  and  ag- 
nosticism and  materialism  are  not  fundamental. 
The  question  is  not  whether  God  is  all  in  all, 
or  whether  God  is  knowable  or  unknowable,  or 
whether  God  is  material  or  spiritual  in  being. 
These  questions  are  profoundly  important,  but 
they  are  not  the  most  important.  The  ultimate 
demand  is  whether  God  is  or  is  not.  The  final 
duel  in  the  world  of  thought  is  between  theism 
and  atheism,  and  all  other  engagements  and  vic- 
tories are  to  be  esteemed  important  according  to 
their  bearing  upon  this  last  battle. 

It  may  not  be  without  interest  to  note  that 
the  order  of  this  discussion  when  reversed  gives 
the  author's  view  as  optimism  founded  upon  the 
Divine  intention.  God  is  held  as  on  the  side  of 
his  universe ;  it  is  moral  because  he  is  in  it. 
Christ  is  of  infinite  worth  because  he  has  God 
behind  him.  History  is  a  sure  campaign  against 
practical  atheism  and  inhumanity  because  God 
is  in  it.  Humanity  as  one  means  social  man  in 
his  fullness,  and  social  man  has  his  being  in  the 
social  God.  Personality  is  the  capacity  for  ra- 
tional sympathy  and  fellowship,  and  its  reality 
is  in  the  inspiration  of  the  Infinite.  God  is  for 


136  FAITH  AND  ITS  CATEGORIES 

mankind,  from  first  to  last,  in  this  world  and 
in  all  worlds.  He  cannot  deny  himself.  This 
scheme  stands  for  intentional  universalism  on 
the  part  of  God.  It  is  the  will  of  God  that  all 
men  should  be  saved ;  that  is  his  purpose,  for 
that  his  gracious  power  is  organized  in  life  and 
in  history,  for  that  he  works,  and  for  that  he 
must  always  work.  But  a  consistent  scheme  is 
not  the  same  thing  as  reality ;  intentional  uni- 
versalism is  not  universalism  in  fact.  The  battle 
is  on,  and  God  has  organized  his  grace  for  ab- 
solute victory ;  but  the  issues  are  still  undeter- 
mined, and  those  who  hope  in  God  are  worse 
than  triflers,  they  are  blasphemers,  unless  they 
fight  under  his  banner,  unless  they  strive  to  win 
the  enemy  over  to  the  Divine  side. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE   INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE:   PERSONALITY 


THE  late  master  of  Baliol,  Benjamin  Jowett, 
writes  of  a  Mr.  Ward,  a  minor  person  in  the  Ox- 
ford Movement :  "  He  was  the  best  arguer  from 
given  premises  that  I  have  ever  known.  It 
would  be  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  he 
spent  the  greater  part  of  the  day  in  arguing." l 
Carlyle  remarks  of  Lord  Jeffrey  that  he  was  so 
swift  and  adroit  in  argument  that  there  was  no 
hope  of  being  able  to  meet  him  except  with 
greater  depth  of  insight.  The  same  author  says 
of  John  Sterling  that  he  could  argue  victoriously 
against  a  half  dozen  disputants  at  once,  and  in 
the  context  we  are  told  that  this  victorious  de- 
bater was  properly  no  thinker  at  all.  Dialec- 
tical skill  should  imply  intellectual  power,  but 
unfortunately  it  does  not  always  imply  it.  It  is 
a  trick  easily  learned,  and  when  associated  with 
high  self-esteem,  strongly  developed  polemic  in- 
stincts, slight  intellectual  integrity,  a  shallow 
mind  is  capable  of  making  a  great  display  by 
1  Sermons  Biographical  and  Miscellaneous,  p.  137. 


138  THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE 

means  of  it.  Ward  and  Jeffrey  and  Sterling 
were  doubtless  honest  men ;  but  their  mental 
dexterity  was  joined  to  an  unmistakable  super- 
ficiality. They  are  types  of  the  degeneration  to 
which  the  dialectical  spirit  is  apt  to  fall.  They 
remind  one  of  a  class  of  men  with  whom  they 
have  little  else  in  common,  the  popular  negative 
thinkers  who  have  so  widely  engaged  modern 
attention.  With  the  single  exception  of  Hume, 
they  are  strikingly  wanting  in  depth.  Mon- 
taigne, Voltaire,  Huxley,  John  Stuart  Mill  even, 
and  other  kindred  writers  do  not  get  at  the 
heart  of  the  matter.  The  mood  to  which  refer- 
ence is  made  is  acute,  adroit,  persistent,  belliger- 
ent ;  but  it  is  wanting  in  deep  prevailing  insight. 
English  empericism  from  Hume  onward,  and 
French  sensationalism  from  the  time  of  Locke, 
are  reflected  in  the  works  of  a  great  number  of 
popular  writers.  They  are  an  attack  upon  the 
personality  of  man.  Descartes  had  said,  "I 
think,  therefore  I  am ;  "  that  is,  he  had  found  in 
thought  the  complete  assurance  of  personal  real- 
ity. This  is  the  fortress  which  is  continually 
assailed  by  the  school  of  thought  that  regards 
the  great  French  thinker  as  an  antagonist.  The 
vindication  of  human  personality  is  the  counter 
and  greater  tradition  of  modern  philosophy.  It 
is  certain  that  we  should  not  be  in  our  present 
clear  and  sure  possession  of  this  fundamental 


PERSONALITY  139 

truth  but  for  the  adroit,  persistent,  and  confi- 
dent attack  of  negative  opinion.  So  much  must 
be  put  to  its  credit. 

Hume  writes  :  "  I  never  can  catch  myself  at 
any  time  without  a  perception,  and  never  can 
observe  anything  but  the  perception." l  How 
could  Hume  catch  himself  when  he  was  trying 
to  catch  something  else  ?  He  looked  in  sensa- 
tions for  himself,  but  he  was  not  a  sensation,  an 
impression.  He  looked  for  himself  among  the 
faint  images  of  impressions,  among  his  ideas, 
but  he  was  not  an  idea.  And  because  he  could 
see  no  impression  or  idea  that  was  himself  he 
concluded  that  he  himself  was  a  fiction.  And 
so  it  comes  to  pass  that  Hume  looking  for  him- 
self means  impression  looking  for  itself  and  idea 
looking  for  itself.  Thus  it  turns  out  that  in- 
stead of  one  person  trying  to  catch  himself  we 
have  a  whole  mindful  of  personalized  impres- 
sions and  ideas  trying  to  catch  themselves.  The 
excellent  thing  about  this  hunt  of  Hume  after 
an  ego  abstracted  from  all  mental  life,  and  his 
confession  of  failure,  is  that  it  opens  up  to  the 
heart  the  whole  subject  of  human  personality. 

One  of  the  three  grand  characteristics  of 
Buddhism  is  thus  defined  :  "  Whether  Buddhas 
arise,  O  priests,  or  whether  Buddhas  do  not  arise, 
it  remains  a  fact,  and  the  fixed  and  necessary 

1  A  Treatise  on  Human  Nature,  Book  I.  p.  252. 


140  THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE 

constitution  of  being,  that  all  its  elements  are 
lacking  in  an  ego ;  this  fact  a  Buddha  discovers 
and  masters,  and  when  he  has  discovered  and 
mastered  it,  he  announces,  teaches,  publishes,  pro- 
claims, discloses,  minutely  explains,  and  makes 
it  clear  that  all  the  elements  of  being  are  lack- 
ing in  an  ego." l  This  is  one  of  the  best 
conundrums  ever  invented.  How  a  universe 
wholly  plural  should  be  able  to  discover  that  it 
was  not  a  universe  at  all ;  how  a  non-personal 
Buddha  should  be  able  to  discover  and  master 
the  fact  of  universal  non-personality ;  how  he 
should  be  able  to  announce  and  teach  and  mi- 
nutely explain  it  to  a  multitude  of  non-personal 
beings  like  himself,  would  seem  to  be  the  super- 
lative marvel.  The  supposition  is  that  there  is 
no  ego  anywhere.  Now  that  might  be  the  in- 
conceivable fact.  The  puzzle  is  how  it  could  be 
discovered.  How  could  ideas  of  unity  and  per- 
manence arise  in  the  absence  of  all  unity  and  all 
permanence  ?  It  is  like  asking  a  dead  man  to 
write  his  own  obituary,  insert  it  in  the  daily 
newspaper,  call  the  attention  of  his  friends 
to  the  fact  that  he  is  no  longer  living,  and 
to  minutely  explain  it.  One  contemplates  this 
third  grand  characteristic  of  Buddhism  with  the 
same  ineffable  wonder  with  which  the  Western 
farmer  looked  upon  the  calf's  tail  sign  over  the 
1  Henry  Clarke  Warren,  Buddhism,  p.  xiv. 


PERSONALITY  141 

tannery.  His  exclamation  was,  "  How  did  the 
calf  get  through  the  hole  in  which  the  tail 
stuck ! "  On  pondering  this  third  axiom  of 
Buddhism  one  exclaims,  How  did  the  ego  es- 
cape through  the  hole  in  which  the  knowledge 
of  its  escape  was  caught !  Nothing  is  more  hu- 
morous than  the  unconscious  contradictions  of 
earnest  thought,  and  nothing  could  be  a  better 
introduction  to  the  fresh  treatment  of  any  part 
of  reality.  The  helpless  and  ludicrous  mass  of 
contradictions  into  which  Buddhism  is  brought 
by  the  denial  of  the  ego  is  profoundly  interest- 
ing. It  shows  the  folly  of  man's  attempt  to 
suppress  man  while  endeavoring  to  do  the  work 
of  man.  It  demonstrates  that  every  abolition 
of  personality  is  but  a  new  assertion  of  it. 

The  definition  of  personality  cannot  be  com- 
plete, on  account  of  what  Tennyson  calls  its 
abysmal  depths.  Definition  is  delimitation,  but 
no  one  can  set  bounds  to  the  soul.  Definition 
is  the  synthesis  of  salient  features,  of  significant 
aspects ;  and  in  the  case  of  the  human  spirit, 
this  must  always  remain  provisional.  No  man 
can  comprehend  himself ;  hence  exhaustive  de- 
finition is  impossible.  Personality  is  found  to 
be  the  centre  of  contrary  determinations,  and 
this  adds  to  the  difficulty  of  definite  thinking 
upon  the  subject.  The  one  and  the  many,  the 
unique  and  the  general,  the  incommunicable  and 


142  THE  INDIVIDUAL  ULTIMATE 

the  free  sympathies,  the  sacred  reservation  of 
individuality  and  the  equally  sacred  communion 
of  soul  with  soul,  are  gathered  in  the  reality  of 
personal  being.  A  further  difficulty  is  owing  to 
the  fact  noticed  by  Coleridge,  who  remarks  that 
Noah's  ark  affords  a  fine  image  of  the  world  at 
large,  as  containing  a  very  few  men  and  a  great 
number  of  beasts.  The  profounder  aspect  of 
personality  is  moral  personality ;  and  this  re- 
quires for  its  proper  accentuation  moral  life. 
As  the  permanent  streams  are  reduced  by 
drought  to  mere  shadows  of  themselves,  so  in 
the  destitution  of  moral  experience  the  abiding 
fact  of  moral  being  wastes  to  a  line.  Perhaps 
it  may  serve  as  a  provisional  statement  of  per- 
sonality if  we  say  that  it  denotes  the  abiding 
and  unique  reality  of  the  single  human  being. 
The  meaning  of  this  statement  will  appear  in 
the  discussion  that  is  to  follow. 

II 

The  unique  and  abiding  reality  of  the  single 
human  mind  is  revealed  in  the  process  of  know- 
ledge and  in  the  force  of  character.  Episte- 
mology,  or  the  science  of  knowledge,  and  eth- 
ics, or  the  science  of  character,  guide  one  to  the 
vision  of  the  selfhood  which  is  the  ultimate  real- 
ity in  the  individual  mind.  Thorough  insight 
into  the  methods  of  knowledge  would  seem  to 


PERSONALITY  143 

result  inevitably  in  the  assurance  of  an  ego. 
Here  Kant's  work  is  fundamental ;  it  is,  besides, 
a  step  toward  finality.  Thorough  insight  into 
the  process  of  conscience  would  appear  to  lead 
to  the  same  conclusion.  Here  Butler's  work  is 
of  permanent  significance.  Kant  finds  the  ego 
necessary  to  knowledge,  Butler  finds  it  necessary 
to  character.  Behind  mental  and  moral  life, 
according  to  the  German  thinker,  is  the  con- 
structing person ;  behind  the  process  of  the 
conscience,  according  to  the  British  thinker, 
there  is  the  accountable  self.  Butler  and  Kant 
stand  for  great  beginnings ;  the  work  done  by 
both  is  solid  and  enduring.  Both  are  guides  to 
the  profounder  and  surer  sense  of  the  unique 
and  abiding  reality  of  the  individual  mind. 

Personality  reveals  itself  through  the  com- 
bining or  unifying  function  of  mind.  Man  is 
indeed  a  series  of  states,  but  he  is  more.  He  is 
these  in  combination,  woven  into  the  one  fabric 
of  experience.  There  is  in  mind  a  flying  shut- 
tle; it  is  threaded  through  the  senses.  Thus 
threaded  with  sights  and  sounds,  with  sensations 
of  taste  and  smell  and  touch,  it  goes  on  its  swift 
and  marvelous  service.  It  weaves  the  web  of 
experience  according  to  its  own  design.  Sensa- 
tions are  no  more  knowledge  than  threads  are 
cloth.  Weaving  turns  the  threads  into  cloth ; 
combination,  according  to  a  given  plan,  turns 


144  THE  INDIVIDUAL  ULTIMATE 

sensations  into  knowledge.  The  Inferno,  the 
Purgatorio,  the  Paradiso  are  names  for  the  suc- 
cessive moods  of  the  man  Dante  ;  and  speaking  in 
a  general  way  they  are  signs  for  the  successive 
experiences  of  genuine  men  in  all  the  centuries. 
But  the  "  Divine  Comedy "  is  a  whole,  and 
the  isolated  moods  of  its  author  are  not  isolated 
at  all ;  they  are  parts  in  one  great  human  con- 
sciousness. The  poet  Burns  is  a  succession  of 
states.  A  new  feeling  for  nature  rises  in  his 
heart  almost  every  day.  He  is  in  love  with  at 
least  fifty  different  persons,  from  Highland  Mary 
to  Jane  Armour.  He  is  occasionally  intoxicated; 
but  for  the  most  part  he  is  industrious,  generous, 
independent,  brave.  His  life  is  like  the  fitful 
weather  of  his  country  —  sunshine  and  ram,  the 
clouds  heavy  and  dull  or  storm-driven  and  the 
deep  blue  sky,  the  glory  and  the  gloom  of  nature 
in  all  degrees  swiftly  alternating.  This  strange 
succession  of  moods,  both  mixed  and  contrasted, 
sweeping  onward  like  shadows  over  the  corn- 
fields, is  the  substance  of  the  mind  of  Burns,  as 
it  is  the  substance  of  the  mind  of  man.  But  the 
mind  itself,  the  principle  that  holds  the  vast  and 
varied  and  fleeting  succession  through  percep- 
tion and  memory  and  imagination  and  reason, 
and  that  builds  its  moods  into  one  human  ex- 
perience, must  be  added.  Without  that  princi- 
ple of  combination  and  unification  Burns  is  not, 


PERSONALITY  145 

man  is  not.  That  knowledge  is  an  organization 
of  the  many  into  the  one  is  nearly  incapable  of 
doubt  to  any  person  who  has  the  least  metaphysi- 
cal insight.  Man  is  a  conservative  being.  He 
carries  upon  him  the  marks  of  descent  from  the 
first  man,  who  is  of  the  earth  earthy,  and  from 
the  second  man,  who  is  the  Lord  from  heaven. 
Conservation  is  a  law  illustrated  in  his  physi- 
cal organism,  in  his  mental  type,  in  his  amen- 
ableness  to  influence,  in  the  process  of  vital 
education  to  which  he  is  subject ;  it  is  further 
illustrated  in  perception,  memory,  imagination, 
reason,  character.  Through  the  activity  of  all 
these  powers  the  tendency  of  the  mind  is  to 
keep  that  which  has  been  committed  to  it.  This 
principle  of  conservation,  of  unification  of  the 
isolated  and  fleeting  in  mental  life  into  a  perma- 
nent whole,  is  but  an  aspect  of  the  ultimate, 
indivisible  human  soul. 

The  alternative  to  this  would  be  the  auto- 
matic view  of  mind.  That  mental  life  involves 
unification  no  one  would  deny;  the  question 
would  be  in  what  way,  and  by  what  means,  it 
comes  about.  Sensations  group  themselves ; 
memories  are  these  sensations  over  again,  only 
fainter ;  imaginations  are  the  endless  quadrilles 
and  evolutions  of  the  sensational  content ;  rea- 
son is  but  the  customary  combinations  of  sensa- 
tions and  memories  and  hopes.  The  whole  thing 


146  THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE 

is  automatic.  Knowledge  is  the  customary  and 
inevitable  society  among  Hume's  impressions 
and  ideas.  Knowledge  is  society,  but  it  is  purely 
mechanical  society.  This  is  the  miracle  in  which 
we  are  landed  by  the  refusal  to  believe  in  the 
clear  sense  of  personality.  The  result  is  a  count- 
less multitude  of  personalities.  All  sensations, 
all  memories,  all  the  members  of  the  mental 
content,  are  endowed  with  the  attribute  of  per- 
sonality. Like  a  well-drilled  army,  they  go 
through  their  evolutions,  with  here  and  there  a 
shout  from  Fate,  the  general  who  conducts  the 
review.  For  the  substantiation  of  the  man  we 
are  asked  to  accept  the  substantiation  of  the 
uncounted  elements  that  make  up  the  mental 
whole.  This  is  the  Arabian  Nights  of  psycho- 
logy, the  new  Wonderland  where  the  simplest 
"thing  becomes  incredible,  and  where  the  impos- 
sible is  the  real. 

Unification  is  a  conscious  function.  Habits 
are  made,  and  therefore  are  witnesses  to  the 
conscious  combinations,  often  enough  prolonged 
and  severe,  out  of  which  they  rose.  Seeing, 
hearing,  all  the  senses,  imply  a  process  of  read- 
ing. There  is  a  grammar  of  sense;  it  has 
alphabet,  words,  parts  of  speech,  rules  of  syn- 
tax ;  and  the  labor  involved  in  the  act  by  which 
the  child  makes  out  an  object  through  sight  or 
touch,  or  through  all  the  senses  together,  is  at 


PERSONALITY  147 

first  immense.  The  automatic  action  of  the 
mind  has  behind  it  a  history  of  conscious  and 
painful  origination.  The  useful  spontaneities  of 
man  are  largely  the  returns  to  labor.  Even  in 
a  trained  mind  the  directing  intelligence  can 
never  safely  be  discharged.  Thinking  by  asso- 
ciation, and  not  by  insight,  is  the  humorous 
aspect  of  intellectual  life.  Into  this  mental  ac- 
tion by  mere  association,  every  thinker  is  in 
danger  of  falling.  A  shrewd  observer  watching 
a  preacher  who  had  ceased  to  move  by  the  force 
of  rational  vision,  and  who  was  hurried  hither 
and  thither  by  chance  thoughts,  thus  describes 
him:  "He  reminds  me  of  a  foolish  dog  I  once 
heard  of  that  was  in  pursuit  of  a  deer,  but  com- 
ing to  a  place  where  a  fox  had  crossed  the  track, 
he  left  the  deer  and  ran  after  the  fox.  He  had 
not  followed  the  fox  far  before  he  arrived  at 
a  spot  where  a  rabbit  had  crossed.  Forthwith 
he  leaves  the  fox  and  pursues  the  rabbit;  but 
when  the  hunter  came  up  he  had  left  the  rabbit 
and  was  barking  at  a  mouse-hole."  Mere  asso- 
ciational  thinking  can  never  be  sure  of  attaining 
its  end.  The  probabilities  are  that  the  grand 
primary  quest,  the  deer,  will  be  given  up  for  the 
secondary  interests  that  cross  the  mind's  path. 
Lift  from  the  trained  mind  even  the  power  of 
conscious  self -direction,  and  the  end  will  be 
"  barking  at  a  mouse-hole." 


148  THE  INDIVIDUtlL   ULTIMATE 

In  character  this  is  obvious.  Men  do  not 
become  what  they  are  by  chance.  The  soul  be- 
comes a  bad  habit  or  a  good,  a  spontaneity  for 
shame  or  for  honor,  only  as  the  issue  of  delib- 
erate, forced,  sustained  drill.  For  the  normal 
human  being  the  labor  involved  in  attaining 
facility  in  wickedness  is  great.  The  adept  in 
evil  device  and  in  unscrupulous  action  repre- 
sents a  history  of  conscious  effort  that  is  prodi- 
gious. Headlong  automatic  force  is  an  acquisi- 
tion through  long  and  laborious  toil.  It  is  in 
the  nature  of  wages.  In  this  sense  the  way  of 
the  transgressor  is  hard,  and  Plato  is  right  in 
pointing  to  extreme  wickedness  as  a  sign  of  the 
vitality  and  power  of  the  soul.1  The  perfected 
habits  of  virtue  and  vice  are  ideals  toward  which 
the  best  men  and  the  worst  make  only  distant 
approximations ;  moral  excellence  in  the  soul  is 
never  self-sustaining ;  and  wickedness  is  never 
without  effort.  Even  if  this  were  so  it  would 
not  follow  that  man  is  an  automaton.  The 
devil  as  the  symbol  of  perfected  evil  habit  is 
not  thereby  reduced  to  a  mere  machine.  If  the 
diabolic  life  is  a  machine,  the  spirit  in  the  wheels 
is  the  moving  power.  God  as  the. absolute  habit 
of  love  must  forever  renew  the  divine  organism 
of  his  character  by  the  presence  of  ineffable  will. 
Still  in  the  mystery  of  human  life  the  sense  of 

1  Republic,  Book  X.  610. 


PERSONALITY  149 

effort  that  underlies  the  mental  character  of  the 
race  is  a  welcome  witness  to  the  fact  that  uni- 
fication is  a  conscious  function. 

Personality  attests  itself  not  only  through  the 
function  of  unification  but  also  through  the  fact 
of  judgment.  The  moods  are  united  in  one  ex- 
perience, and  the  judgment  is  passed  upon  its 
worth  or  its  worthlessness.  The  confessional 
literature  of  the  world  is  one  great  witness  to 
this  personal  judgment  upon  life.  The  peni- 
tential psalms,  Babylonian  and  Hebrew,  the  au- 
thentic records  of  the  spiritual  life  of  mankind, 
ancient  and  modern,  reveal  man  sitting  in  judg- 
ment upon  himself.  The  ideal  is  always  a  judge, 
first  of  the  life  that  is,  and  then  of  the  life  that 
should  be.  Ye  shall  be  perfect  as  your  heavenly 
Father  is  perfect.  That  is  the  great  legislative 
enactment  of  the  kingdom  of  God ;  its  applica- 
tion to  the  individual  citizen  in  that  kingdom 
is  a  judicial  process.  The  Christian  is  first  a 
provisional  legislator  for  himself ;  he  lays  the 
whole  life,  all  its  isolated  states,  under  one  law. 
By  that  moral  law  he  combines,  consolidates, 
unites.  He  is,  in  the  second  place,  a  provisional 
judge  of  himself.  He  interprets  the  law,  and 
applies  it  in  the  ascertainment  of  the  worth  or 
the  worthlessness  of  his  life.  The  publican  with 
his  head  in  the  dust  crying,  "  God  be  merciful 
to  me  a  sinner,"  and  Luther  at  the  Diet  of 


150  THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE 

Worms  declaring,  "  Here  I  stand,  I  can  do  no 
other ;  God  help  me,  amen,"  are  both  under 
self-legislation  and  self-judgment ;  in  both,  and 
by  a  double  testimony,  the  reality  of  personality 
is  attested. 

The  fact  of  moral  judgment  cannot  indeed  be 
denied,  but  it  may  be  explained  away.  It  may 
be  resolved  into  the  feeling  of  attraction  or 
repulsion  that  goes  with  certain  other  groups 
of  feelings.  The  bird  sheds  its  plumage  every 
year ;  the  old  feathers  go  because  they  are 
pushed  from  their  places,  sentence  is  passed 
upon  them,  judgment  is  decreed  against  them. 
Thus  moods  are  displaced  by  moods,  and  what 
seems  the  force  of  moral  judgment  is  but  the 
action  of  repulsion  in  the  succession  of  mental 
states.  But  in  reply  it  may  be  said  that  even 
here  the  permanence  of  the  bird  is  assumed,  and 
while  it  has  no  power  over  its  successive  coats 
of  many  colors,  it  may  conceivably  have  an  opin- 
ion about  their  relative  merits.  In  all  mental 
succession  a  subject  is  assumed,  a,nd  even  when 
it  is  claimed  that  the  subject  is  without  power 
over  the  succession,  it  is  clear  the  judgment  upon 
its  character  is  real.  Associational  psychology 
has  gone  deeply  into  the  feeling  and  imagination 
of  the  Anglo-American  mind.  It  must  be  treated 
as  it  is,  a  huge  superstition.  It  is  the-swarm- 
of-bees  theory  of  the  human  mind.  The  hive  is 


PERSONALITY  151 

the  bodily  organism  and  the  bees  are  the  mental 
content,  and  they  tumble  in  and  out  in  ceaseless 
mystery.  The  only  unity  is  the  hive  ;  the  only 
law  is  the  instinct  by  which  the  swarm  some- 
how holds  together.  Against  the  principle  that 
unites  life  into  one  experience,  and  that  holds 
that  experience  before  itself  for  judgment,  the 
literature  of  Huinian  psychology  is  to  be  classed 
in  the  department  of  humor. 

Personality  reveals  itself  in  the  force  of  char- 
acter. Character  is  the  habit  of  acting  in  a 
given  way ;  and  this  tendency  toward  action  of 
a  given  type  expresses  personal  reality.  Men 
are  seen  to  be  men  most  clearly  because  they 
bring  things  to  pass.  Professor  Andrew  Seth 
has  well  remarked  that  the  maxim  for  to-day  is 
not  Descartes's  famous  Cogito  ergo  sum,  but  Ago 
ergo  sum.1  As  a  New  England  preacher  once 
said,  "  We  have  too  many  resolutions  and  too 
little  action.  The  Acts  of  the  Apostles  is  the 
title  of  one  of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament ; 
their  resolutions  have  not  reached  us."  Apos- 
tolic reality  is  finally  assured  through  apostolic 
achievement.  In  the  sense  that  thought  and 
feeling  are  subservient  to  will,  Christianity  is 
the  religion  of  achievement.  Greater  than  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  the  Temptation,  higher 
than  the  assurance  of  spirit  given  in  the  para- 
1  Man's  Place  in  the  Cosmos,  p.  128. 


152  THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE 

Lies  is  that  given  in  the  cure  of  disease,  in  the 
removal  of  insanity,  in  moving  sinners  to  re- 
pentance, in  creating  in  a  Zacchaeus  the  love  of 
righteousness,  in  educating  the  twelve.  The 
church  is  profoundly  right  in  holding  that  the 
agony  in  the  Garden  and  the  sovereignty  of  self 
there  maintained,  the  arrest,  the  trial,  and  the 
mockery,  and  the  sublime  demeanor  under  them 
constitute  an  ascending  series  of  disclosures  of 
the  heart  of  Christ.  The  church  is  right  in 
holding  that  the  supreme  revelation  of  Christ 
is  upon  the  cross.  The  alternatives  by  which 
Jesus  was  confronted  were  desertion  of  his  cause 
or  crucifixion  for  it.  Moral  supremacy  is,  there- 
fore, given  in  the  crucifixion. 

To  return  to  the  discussion  upon  a  lower  level, 
it  may  be  said  that  thinking  is  not  so  sure  a  wit- 
ness for  the  reality  of  the  soul  as  action.  Fichte 
must  be  added  to  Descartes.  "  The  Vocation  of 
Man  "  is  the  record  of  a  great  spirit  bent  upon 
the  certain  assurance  of  itself.  In  the  first  book 
of  that  remarkable  work  the  writer  describes 
himself  as  the  pupil  of  Spinoza.  Necessity  gov- 
erns him ;  in  body  and  in  mind  he  is  but  the 
expression  of  the  universal  forces  of  extension 
and  thought.  He  has  no  life  of  his  own  ;  he  is 
only  as  the  mode  of  another  being.  The  second 
book  discovers  Fichte  as  the  disciple  of  Kant. 
Mind  is  essentially  active;  thought  rebels 


PEBSONALITT  153 

against  the  domination  of  the  material  world ; 
it  is  free,  and  knowledge  is  an  edifice  built  ac- 
cording to  the  plan  of  the  mind  and  by  its  own 
hands.  But  the  doubt  returns  that  perhaps  this 
mental  world  is  only  a  subjective  dream,  with  no 
valid  relation  to  the  universe,  and  no  reality  for 
itself.  From  this  doubt  the  philosopher  frees 
himself  in  the  third  book.  Here  is  indicated  the 
ultimate  vocation  of  man.  He  is  finally  a  doer, 
and  in  this  vocation  he  sets  agoing  within  him- 
self, and  in  the  universe  beyond  him,  all  the 
bells  of  reality.  Henceforth  he  lives  in  the 
sense  and  inspiration  of  their  music.  The  last 
assurance  of  personal  being  and  universal  reality 
is  through  action.  In  bringing  things  to  pass 
man  discovers  himself;  in  struggling  to  bring 
righteousness  to  pass  he  is  forever  under  the 
power  of  the  psalm  of  truth. 

The  unifying,  judging,  and  creative  functions 
of  the  human  mind  will  continue  to  attest  to 
the  unsophisticated  intelligence  the  personal  re- 
ality of  man.  A  single  analogous  case  may  not 
be  superfluous  in  this  summary.  The  United 
States  is  one  nation  because  there  is  for  all  the 
states  one  ultimate  law,  one  final  judge  of  that 
law,  one  chief  executive.  Congress  legislates 
for  all  the  states ;  the  supreme  court  interprets 
that  law  for  all  the  states,  and  judges  them  in 
their  relations  to  it ;  and  the  President  sees 


154  THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE 

that  the  judicial  opinion  is  brought  to  pass  in 
the  life  of  the  people.  The  states  are  one  na- 
tion because  they  are  united  by  legislative  enact- 
ment, judicial  process,  and  executive  power.  The 
states  are  one  because  they  are  under  a  govern- 
ment whose  reality  is  attested  by  one  legal  intel- 
lect, one  legal  conscience,  and  one  legal  will  for 
all  the  people.  Analogously,  one  out  of  many  is 
the  primary  account  of  the  human  mind.  Judg- 
ment upon  the  character  of  -the  whole  thus 
achieved  is  the  second  fact,  the  application  of  a 
law  of  righteousness  either  in  approval  or  in  dis- 
approval. And  the  third  and  crowning  phenom- 
enon is  the  power  that  brings  things  to  pass. 
The  legislative,  the  judicial,  and  the  executive 
functions  of  the  mind  are  the  three  great  wit- 
nesses for  the  personal  reality  of  man. 

in 

There  are  certain  large  and  commanding 
expressions  of  the  human  mind  that  shed  light 
upon  personality.  The  maxim  would  appear  to 
be  valid  that  the  creator  is  known  by  the  crea- 
tion. The  axiom  holds  in  the  intellectual  no 
less  than  in  the  physical  and  in  the  moral 
world.  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them. 
From  nothing  can  come  nothing.  The  stream 
cannot  rise  higher  than  the  fountain.  It  is  im- 
possible for  one  to  give  that  which  one  does  not 


PERSONALITY  155 

possess.  In  the  strength  of  these  fundamental 
discriminations  of  thought,  wherever  one  finds 
a  work  of  art,  something  expressive  of  order, 
unity,  and  beauty,  one  is  bound  to  lodge  the 
sense  of  these  things  in  the  soul  of  the  artist. 
The  Parthenon  is  great  in  itself ;  it  is  also  great 
as  an  expression  of  the  mind  of  Phidias.  The 
high  mental  expression  is  preceded  by  the  high 
mental  power. 

Science  is  from  this  point  of  view  an  expres- 
sion of  man's  personality.  It  is  hard  to  believe 
that  the  mind  could  find  order  outside  and  be- 
yond itself  if  it  were  unable  to  find  order  within 
itself.  The  fact  is  that  there  is  no  outside  be- 
yond man.  Nature  is  more  than  the  mind  of 
man,  yet  it  is  full  of  the  mind  of  man.  Na- 
ture exists  for  man  as  an  organization  through 
the  senses,  and  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of 
thought.  Nature  is  not  color ;  that  is  in  the  hu- 
man eye.  It  is  not  sound ;  that  is  in  the  human 
ear.  It  is  neither  smell  nor  taste  ;  these  are  in 
human  sensibility.  It  is  not  hardness  nor  soft- 
ness, cold  nor  heat,  rigidity  nor  elasticity ;  these 
are  the  product  of  the  human  organism  in  rela- 
tion to  nature.  What  is  nature  ?  It  affects  and 
feeds  the  senses ;  it  is  in  constant  and  influential 
relation  to  the  mind ;  it  is,  therefore,  real.  But 
what  is  the  reality  ?  We  cannot  be  sure  that  it 
is  anything  other  than  force  or  will.  And  we 


156  THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE 

could  never  know  this  were  it  not  for  the  con- 
sciousness of  force  or  will  that  each  one  knows 
as  himself.  Schopenhauer's  phrase,  "the  objecti- 
fication  of  will,"  seems  to  me  to  cover  the  case. 
Casting  about  for  an  explanation  of  the  cease- 
less attack  which  nature  makes  upon  the  human 
mind  through  the  senses,  the  best  possible  ap- 
pears to  be  that  nature  is  will.  Nature  behaves 
like  will,  and  on  this  ground  it  is  believed  to 
be  will ;  and  this  conclusion  means  simply  the 
justifiable  objectification  of  will.  So  far  man's 
knowledge  of  nature  is  an  expression  of  his 
knowledge  of  himself. 

But  will  and  intellect  are  in  an  inseparable 
association  in  man,  and  therefore  man  proceeds 
further  in  his  reading  of  nature.  Sensations 
come  to  him  in  orderly  sequences.  In  this  way 
he  reaches  what  he  calls  natural  law.  Neither 
time  nor  tide  waits  for  any  man.  The  succes- 
sion of  day  and  night  is  invariable ;  the  proces- 
sion of  the  seasons  cannot  be  arrested.  Fire 
burns,  water  drowns,  the  summer  sun  scorches, 
and  the  winter  atmosphere  freezes.  Whatso- 
ever a  man  soweth  that  shall  he  also  reap  —  bar- 
ley from  barley,  wheat  from  wheat,  tares  from 
tares.  The  oak,  the  maple,  the  birch,  the  wal- 
nut tree,  each  reproduces  itself  and  not  another. 
Everywhere  from  like  causes  flow  like  effects. 
The  elements  of  the  world  are  indestructible, 


PERSONALITY  157 

and  the  laws  of  their  combination  are  discovered 
and  not  invented  by  the  chemist.  Face  to  face 
with  nature  one  soon  discovers  that  one  is  in  the 
presence  of  an  independent  and  inviolable  order. 
But  this  beholding  of  order  through  the  senses 
is  but  the  justifiable  objectification  of  intellect. 
When  we  say  that  the  world  is  force  we  are 
reading  the  attack  which  it  makes  upon  the 
senses  through  conscious  will ;  when  we  say 
that  the  world  is  an  order,  a  system  of  forces,  we 
are  construing  its  meaning  through  intelligent 
will.  Historically  the  sense  of  ethical  law  pre- 
cedes the  discovery  of  natural  law.  We  are 
told  that  Aristotle's  natural  science  is  wild ;  we 
know  that  his  ethical  science  is  immortal.  As 
far  as  it  goes  his  logic  is  a  marvel  of  rational 
order;  his  physics  are  only  preserved  because 
they  are  his.  This  is  simply  a  striking  instance 
of  a  universal  law.  Stoic  ethics  are  of  perma- 
nent value ;  stoic  physics  are  valueless.  The 
sense  of  mental  and  moral  order  in  its  supreme 
form  is  as  old  as  the  Founder  of  Christianity. 
And  this  precedence  of  the  inward  over  the  out- 
ward is  of  inexpressible  moment.  It  is  the  sure 
sign  that  we  do  not  read  the  natural  order  into 
the  spiritual ;  but  that  having  found  the  spirit- 
ual order,  at  a  much  later  stage  of  experience, 
we  are  able  to  construe  in  its  light  the  natural 
order.  Early  in  history  there  comes  the  con- 


158  THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE 

sciousness  of  an  order  in  human  life  that  man 
did  not  make  and  that  he  cannot  unmake.  The 
laws  that  govern  the  health  of  the  body,  the 
continuance  of  man  upon  the  earth,  the  due 
training,  the  ever  wider  information,  and  the 
rational  expression  of  the  intellect,  and  the  de- 
velopment of  just  character,  are  independent  of 
volition.  They  are  in  the  nature  of  man.  So- 
cial well-being  is  in  the  keeping  of  an  irrevo- 
cable necessity.  Right  action  and  wrong,  sane 
methods  of  living  and  insane,  are  in  each  case 
followed  by  irreversible  consequences.  No  man 
can  serve  two  masters.  The  laws  of  life  are 
above  and  beyond  volition.  We  may  choose  our 
path,  but  the  choice  once  made  the  consequence  is 
inevitable.  Ethnic  eschatologies  are  simply  a  le- 
gendary presentation  of  the  absoluteness  of  moral 
law.  The  way  into  the  abyss  will  never  lead  to 
the  heights  ;  the  conduct  that  is  an  outrage  upon 
the  individual  life  and  an  insult  to  society  is 
perdition.  We  cannot  stay  the  planet  in  its 
flight,  arrest  or  change  the  ongoing  stars,  reverse 
the  tide  before  its  time,  invert  the  seasons,  or 
roll  back  the  river  upon  its  source  ;  and  we  are 
led  to  perceive  and  understand  this  physical 
impossibility  because  of  the  earlier  sense  of  the 
moral  impossibility  of  overthrowing  or  altering 
the  laws  that  govern  human  life.  In  the  light 
of  the  order  within,  man  is  able  to  note  and 
understand  the  order  without. 


PERSONALITY  159 

But  science  runs  into  a  philosophy  of  nature. 
The  assumption  is  that  nature  is  one ;  she  is  a 
universe.  And  this  thought,  which  has  taken 
possession  to-day  of  almost  every  one  who  thinks, 
is  but  the  full  objectification  of  man  in  nature. 
Will  is  but  an  aspect  of  human  life ;  intelligence 
and  will  together  do  not  exhaust  man.  He  is 
unity  in  multiplicity,  a  permanent  spirit  in  a 
world  of  change,  a  self -identical  being  in  a  wide 
experience  of  diversity.  In  this  unity  will  and 
intellect  and  feeling  live ;  they  are  aspects  of 
this  unity,  they  do  not  exhaust  it.  And  thus 
possessed  as  man  is  with  the  sense  of  force  and 
order  and  unity  he  goes  to  the  serious  study  of 
nature.  It  too  is  force  and  order  and  still  more. 
Nature  is  one ;  it  is  a  universe.  It  is  simply 
self -stultification  to  assert  that  our  scientific  view 
of  nature  is  other  than  the  expression  of  human 
personality.  Science  as  the  organized  knowledge 
of  the  force  and  law  and  unity  of  the  material 
world  is  an  impressive  witness  to  the  personal 
spirit  of  man. 

Art  is  another  witness.  It  is  a  creation  ex- 
pressive of  the  spiritual  life.  Its  greater  notes 
are  order,  freedom,  beauty,  unity.  In  the  best 
music,  painting,  poetry,  building,  and  sculpture, 
man  is  the  being  that  he  fails  to  be  in  the  actual 
world.  The  ideal  creation  is  an  expression  of 
the  person  who  would  live  an  ideal  existence. 


160  THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE 

Art  is  ideal  beauty,  as  ethics  is  ideal  right ;  each 
is  a  symbol  of  the  personal  spirit.  And  it  is 
inconceivable  that  a  great  artistic  whole  should 
come  out  of  a  life  that  was  in  no  sense  a  whole 
in  itself.  Art  is  but  the  shadow  of  man ;  and 
in  its  freedom  and  unity  it  is  a  witness  to  his 
freedom  and  unity. 

We  inevitably  seek  personal  centres  for  the 
best  influences  of  the  world.  What  are  called 
the  humanities,  the  wisdom  and  sentiment  of  the 
race  as  expressed  especially  in  literature  and  his- 
tory, centre  in  great  personalities,  and  they  could 
have  no  conceivable  interest  for  a  being  in  the 
image  of  the  Humian  psychology. 

The  true  reading  of  the  world's  best  books  and 
its  great  lives  is  a  re-creation  of  the  past.  Lan- 
guage is  but  a  symbol ;  the  vast  vital  content  of 
the  symbol  is  appreciable  only  through  creative 
imagination.  The  wisdom  of  the  race  is  wrought 
out  through  the  personal  history  of  leading  men  ; 
and  not  until  it  is  ideally  replaced  in  the  con- 
sciousness from  which  it  came  is  it  understood. 
In  all  high  literature  the  authors  are  benefactors  ; 
they  are  lifted  into  an  ideal  world,  they  consti- 
tute an  invisible  commonwealth.  They  are  the 
cloud  of  witnesses  that  encompass  the  noble 
struggle  of  the  world.  The  higher  criticism  has 
its  rights  ;  it  must  protest  against  the  tendency 
to  believe  a  literary  lie.  But  it  is  still  the  ser- 


PERSONALITY  161 

vant  of  imagination.  Make  it  clear  that  Homer 
did  not  write  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  that  there 
are  two  or  three  Isaiahs  instead  of  one,  that 
there  are  no  incontestably  Davidic  psalms,  that 
Moses  has  no  claim  to  the  authorship  of  the 
ninetieth,  the  sublimest  and  most  mournful  of 
all  the  psalms,  and  you  simply  impose  a  new 
duty  upon  the  creative  imagination.  The  spir- 
itual wisdom  of  the  race  cannot  remain  in  the 
air.  Without  name  it  may  be,  but  not  without 
source  in  human  souls.  It  is  the  human  value 
of  history  that  lends  it  an  everlasting  charm. 
And  the  result  of  the  most  destructive  criticism 
is  but  the  opening  up  of  a  fresh  opportunity 
for  the  substantiation  of  wisdom  and  beauty  and 
heroism  and  hope  in  sublime  personalities.  Un- 
der a  philosophic  sense  of  the  force  of  person- 
ality in  the  world,  and  through  adequate  learn- 
ing, this  new  creation  of  the  imagination  will  at 
least  serve  as  a  symbol  of  the  truth.  The  pa- 
triarchs will  live  in  spite  of  criticism ;  the  rich 
legends  of  Genesis  will  continue  as  types  of  the 
personal  origins  of  human  history.  The  modi- 
fied Adam  will  shape  evolution ;  it  will  be  the 
horse  and  he  the  rider.  Thus  persistent,  invin- 
cible, and  rationally  valid  is  the  human  instinct 
for  personality. 

Human  personality  is  the  condition  of  human 
society.     Human  society  is  an  organization  in 


162  THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE 

moral  reason.  The  functions  of  personality  in 
knowledge  and  in  judgment  and  in  action  extend 
themselves  in  society.  Personality  stands  for 
two  things,  the  uniqueness  of  the  individual  and 
his  universality.  The  uniqueness  marks  his  re- 
ality so  that  he  does  not  blend  in  the  social  mass 
as  the  drop  does  in  the  ocean.  The  universality 
is  his  power  of  rational  sympathy,  the  faculty  by 
which  he  is  able  to  share  the  thought,  the  passion, 
and  the  purpose  of  the  widest  and  noblest  social 
whole.  The  genuine  human  home,  as  opposed  to 
the  pairing  of  birds  or  the  cohabitation  of  ani- 
mals, is  an  institution  through  personality;  the 
inviolable  reality  of  the  man  and  the  woman, 
and  the  power  of  reciprocity  in  thought  and  love 
and  service,  are  essential  assumptions.  Through 
instinct  the  human  home  is  an  institution  of 
moral  persons.  Nowhere  are  the  sacredness  and 
the  mutuality  of  personality,  its  uniqueness  and  its 
universality,  so  clearly  seen  as  here.  The  family, 
the  industrial  order,  the  nation,  and  the  commu- 
nity of  the  race,  so  far  as  they  are  not  brutal 
but  human,  are  based  upon  personality. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  personality  in  its  two- 
foldness  of  uniqueness  and  universality  is  essen- 
tial to  religion.  The  Infinite  as  personal  has 
alone  interest  for  man ;  nothing  else  can  mean 
anything  to  man.  The  Eternal  must  mean  an 
Absolute  experience  to  whose  perfection  the  ex- 


PERSONALITY  163 

perience  of  a  good  man  bears  some  likeness.  The 
aboriginal  assumption  of  intelligent  religion  is 
the  personality  of  God,  his  uniqueness  and  ab- 
solute universality ;  and  of  that  life  men  avail 
themselves  by  the  corresponding  power  of  per- 
sonality. Mutuality  in  thought,  in  love,  in  pur- 
pose, and  in  activity  is  possible  between  God  and 
man  on  the  ground  that  in  the  infinity  of  their 
unlikeness  they  are  still  essentially  akin.  Job's 
utterance,  which  is  by  common  consent  regarded 
as  the  supreme  expression  of  the  religious  spirit, 
"  Though  he  slay  me  yet  will  I  trust  in  him," 
is  but  the  spoken  confidence  of  a  real  lover  in  the 
reality  of  the  Eternal  Beloved.  All  swamping  of 
man  in  God,  all  reduction  of  the  soul  to  a  mode  of 
the  Infinite,  to  the  bubble  on  the  ocean,  all  excla- 
mations that  "  he  who  truly  loves  God  must  not 
desire  that  God  should  love  him  in  return,"  are 
pathological.  Religion  as  worship,  as  trust,  and 
as  service  is  from  one  real  being  to  the  reality  of 
the  Supreme  Being.  Through  the  attributes  of 
distinction  and  community  God  and  man  unite ; 
God  with  man  through  Infinite  tenderness  and 
help,  man  with  God  through  homage  and  trust 
and  obedience. 

More,  perhaps,  than  any  one  thing  personality 
means  distinction  from  the  universe  and  con- 
scious involvement  with  it.  Here  is  the  core  of 
the  matter,  it  seems  to  me,  in  the  notes  of  per- 


164  THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE 

manent  distinction  and  of  conscious  sympathy. 
The  two  aspects  of  personality  may,  perhaps,  be 
expressed  in  the  single  phrase  "  conscious  in- 
volvement with  the  universe."  Everything  is  of 
course  related  to  everything  else ;  as  Emerson 
used  to  say,  "  strike  the  rock  with  your  hammer 
and  the  jar  is  felt  in  Jupiter."  Animal  life  is  in- 
cluded in  this  complete  circuit  of  being.  Every 
creature  that  has  life  is  related  to  the  living  whole. 
But  when  we  ascend  to  man  we  come  upon  some- 
thing besides  the  fact  of  universal  relationship. 
Man  is  related  to  nature,  to  human  society,  to 
the  Infinite,  and  he  knows  it.  This  involve- 
ment with  the  universe  reflected  in  conscious- 
ness and  made  distinctive  and  serious  is  the 
chief  characteristic  of  man.  To  trace  the  con- 
scious involvement  of  man  with  the  universe  is 
to  trace  the  meaning  of  his  life,  is  to  expound 
its  reality. 

This  consciousness  makes  the  involvement 
new  in  character.  It  is  no  longer  an  involve- 
ment as  of  one  thing  with  all  things  in  a  me- 
chanical order ;  nor  is  it  the  relation  of  one 
being  to  another  in  a  mere  vital  order.  It  is 
the  involution  of  consciousness  with  conscious- 
ness, of  spirit  with  spirit  in  the  order  of  the 
Absolute  spirit.  Things  are  ordered  by  attrac- 
tion and  repulsion,  and  they  know  it  not;  animals 
are  ordered  by  desire  and  aversion,  and  they  pay 


PERSONALITY  165 

no  heed  to  it ;  men  are  ordered  by  moral  need 
and  hope,  and  their  consciousness  of  moral  need 
and  hope  is  their  life.  The  German  mystic  is 
right  in  his  discrimination  of  man's  world  from 
that  of  the  animal,  —  "  The  element  of  the  fish 
is  the  sea,  the  element  of  the  bird  is  the  air, 
the  element  of  the  soul  is  God."  At  best  the 
highest  animal  life  can  do  no  more  than  come  to 
the  borders  of  man's  world  and  look  up  into  it 
in  utter  blankness  of  vision,  as  certain  inhabit- 
ants of  the  sea  come  to  the  surface  and  look  up 
into  the  sky.  And  the  porpoise  may  be  held  to 
understand  modern  astronomy  when  it  is  said 
truly  that  the  animal  has  the  least  rational  ap- 
preciation of  man's  distinctive  world.  Man  lives 
and  moves  and  has  his  being  in  God ;  that  is,  his 
distinctive  life  is  conscious  involvement  with  the 
universe. 

This  consciousness  may  put  on  either  of  two 
forms.  It  may  be  the  consciousness  of  the  viola- 
tion of  this  high  relation,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
psalmist  when  he  cries,  — 

"  Against  thee,  thee  only,  have  I  sinned, 
And  done  that  which  is  evil  in  thy  sight." 1 

The  outrage  committed  upon  human  life  is  felt 
to  be  an  insult  offered  to  the  Infinite  life.  The 
sense  of  sin  is  the  assertion  of  a  calamitous  con- 
sciousness, and  the  calamity  lies  in  the  disavowal 

1  Psalm  I  i .  4. 


166  THE  INDIVIDUAL.  ULTIMATE 

of-  righteousness.  The  mood  of  repentance  is  a 
transitional  one  —  the  dissolution  of  an  evil  con- 
sciousness toward  God  into  a  good  consciousness 
toward  him.  Or  it  may  be  the  consciousness 
of  ethical  identity  with  God,  as  in  the  case  of 
Christ,  "  I  and  my  Father  are  one."  Judas  and 
Jesus  present  the  ideals  for  these  two  contrasted 
consciousnesses  in  which  men  live.  At  the  low- 
est extreme  is  the  spirit  that  confesses  its  treason 
against  the  Infinite,  at  the  highest  extreme  is  the 
Master  whose  soul  is  at  one  with  the  rhythm  of 
eternal  love.  In  the  consciousness  of  involve- 
ment with  the  Infinite,  and  between  these  two 
extremes  of  despair  and  ecstasy,  men  live.  This 
is  their  world ;  these  are  its  extremes. 

We  come  here  within  sight  of  a  reasonable 
faith  in  immortality.  Every  soul  has  the  per- 
manent distinction  of  conscious  involvement  with 
God.  Personality  is  exclusive  only  under  one 
aspect ;  under  another  aspect  it  is  the  great 
organ  of  inclusiveness.  The  exclusiveness  is 
only  in  order  to  secure  its  essential  reality ;  the 
function  of  that  reality  is  sympathy,  the  perva- 
sive power  of  the  spirit,  the  communion  through 
which  brotherhood  is  realized  and  by  which  men 
are  perfected  in  the  life  of  God.  The  mutualism 
of  humanity  is  thus  expressed  by  the  apostle : 
"  Ye  are  in  our  hearts  to  die  together  and  live 
together."1  The  mutualism  of  God  and  re- 

1  2  Corinthians  vii.  3. 


PERSONALITY  167 

deemed  man  is  thus  set  forth :  "  In  whom  ye 
also  are  builded  together  for  a  habitation  of  God 
in  the  Spirit."  l  And  as  Emerson  sings,— 

"  'T  is  not  within  the  force  of  fate 
The  fate-conjoined  to  separate." 

The  tree  is  yearly  denuded  of  its  leaves,  but 
while  the  tree  lasts  the  structure  remains ;  the 
universe  has  an  immense  range  of  transient 
expression,  but  the  spiritual  organism  of  the 
universe  in  God  and  in  man  would  seem  to  be 
forever.  This  reciprocity  between  God  and  man, 
whether  in  terms  of  love,  as  in  the  case  of  all 
the  holy,  or  in  terms  of  discipline,  as  with  all 
defiant  souls,  would  appear  to  authenticate  the 
immortality  of  man.  In  his  sin,  man  stands 
before  God  as  judge  ;  the  unholy  life  and  the 
supremely  holy  are  interlocked  through  con- 
science. There  would  appear  to  be  no  end  of 
this  reciprocity  in  terms  of  retribution  and  dis- 
cipline save  by  the  conversion  of  the  offending 
soul.  What  once  interlocks  with  the  Divine 
conscience  must  surely  remain  interlocked.  The 
chain  may  be  transformed  from  moral  suffering 
to  moral  joy,  but  it  cannot  be  broken.  What  is 
morally  worth  while  for  God  once  is  morally 
worth  while  forever.  He  is  not  a  man,  that 
he  should  repent.  And  if  this  must  be  so  with 
wicked  persons,  it  is  clear  that  it  must  be  so 

1  Ephesians  ii.  22. 


168  THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE 

with  those  who  love  God.  The  mutualism  of 
this  love  means  the  soul's  hold  upon  God  and 
God's  hold  upon  the  soul. 

Personality,  therefore,  is  the  fundamental  as- 
surance of  immortality.  In  virtue  of  it  man  is 
real,  and  on  account  of  it  he  shares  in  the  best 
life  of  the  race  and  enters  into  and  lays  hold  of 
the  life  of  God.  The  growth  of  the  individual 
in  knowledge  and  in  character  means  the  increase 
of  his  grasp  upon  the  total  achievement  of  man- 
kind, the  larger  reproduction  in  himself  of  the 
higher  moods  of  the  race,  the  sympathetic  owner- 
ship of  the  spiritual  possessions  of  humanity. 
Personality  is  this  spirit  of  pervasiveness  and 
fellowship  in  knowledge,  in  duty,  and  in  hope. 
Learning  is  possible  only  through  personality ; 
and  on  account  of  the  same  fact  it  is  possible 
for  man  to  partake  of  the  life  of  God.  The 
world  of  human  achievement  is  here,  and  God 
is  in  it  and  above  it ;  and  the  capacity  to  per- 
vade and  possess  more  and  more  widely  that 
world,  and  to  rise  evermore  into  a  vaster  sense 
of  the  Transcendent  goodness,  is  perhaps  the 
deepest  thing  in  the  human  soul.  On  account 
of  it  the  soul  lays  hold  upon  the  highest  in 
history  and  in  the  universe,  and  in  virtue  of  it 
the  highest  in  history  and  the  universe  lays  hold 
upon  the  soul.  In  and  through  this  profound 
and  serious  reciprocity  of  spiritual  being,  one 


PERSONALITY  169 

can  hear  from  the  Creative  heart  the  assurance, 
"  Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also." 

"  Till  Death  us  join, 

O  voice  yet  more  Divine  ! 
That  to  the  broken  heart  breathes  hope  sublime ; 

Through  lonely  hours 

And  shattered  powers 
We  still  are  one,  despite  of  change  and  time. 

"  Death,  with  his  healing  hand, 

Shall  once  more  knit  the  band, 
Which  needs  but  that  one  link  which  none  may  sever ; 

Till  through  the  Only  Good, 

Heard,  felt,  and  understood, 
Our  life  in  God  shall  make  us  one  forever." 

IV 

The  capacity  for  expanding  conscious  involve- 
ment in  the  best  life  of  the  universe,  just  noted, 
leads  to  the  general  remark  that  personality  is 
a  real  capacity  rather  than  a  completely  devel- 
oped consciousness.  It  is  a  native  and  enduring 
capacity  whose  realization  is  the  ideal  of  exist- 
ence. Such  as  it  is,  human  experience  is  but  an 
approximation  to  unity ;  besides,  this  experience 
under  adverse  moral  judgment  is  subject  to  dis- 
integration. It  must  be  broken  up  and  pass 
away,  if  the  man  is  ever  to  come  to  himself. 
Perverse  realizations  of  this  high  capacity  are 
the  central  tragedy  of  life,  and  the  thing  that 
man  knows  least  about  is  often  his  own  soul. 
The  ideal  of  personality  is  given  in  the  great 


170  THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE 

words,  "Ye  therefore  shall  be  perfect,  as  your 
heavenly  Father  is  perfect ; " l  and  again,  in  the 
terms  of  Christ's  prayer,  "  that  they  may  be  one 
even  as  we  are."  2  That  is,  experience  must  be 
of  the  true  type,  and  it  must  complete  itself 
through  the  vision  of  the  Absolute  experience. 
From  this  ideal,  men  are  far  away.  The  catego- 
ries of  thought  are  incompletely  applied  to  the 
world  in  knowledge,  and  knowledge  is  at  best 
ill-organized.  The  moral  ideal  is  still  little  more 
than  a  light  upon  the  wild  deep  of  human  pas- 
sion, and  the  noblest  characters  in  the  world  are 
torn  with  contradictions.  The  will  of  man  is 
far  from  being  a  will  wholly  for  righteousness ; 
and  where  it  is  firmly  set  hi  the  resolve  to  bring 
to  pass  the  highest  things,  it  is  only  a  ship  leav- 
ing port,  headed  indeed  homeward,  but  with 
uncounted  leagues  of  stormy  sea  intervening. 
Man  is  enough  of  a  person  to  see  in  God  the 
Absolute  person,  and  to  find  in  God  the  progres- 
sive realization  of  his  own  human  personality. 
Capacities  and  ideals  are  the  last  and  best 
description  of  human  existence.  The  discrimi- 
nating instinct  in  sense,  the  organizing  instinct 
in  intellect,  the  appreciation  of  moral  values  in 
conscience,  the  aptitude  for  selection  and  action 
in  the  will,  and  the  capacity  for  the  unity  of 
truth  and  of  love  in  the  soul,  bring  one  close  to 

i  Matthew  v.  48.  2  John  xvii.  12. 


PERSONALITY  171 

the  reality  of  the  human  mind.  Everywhere 
that  mind  is  a  genuine  capacity  matched  with  a 
sublime  ideal.  If  we  look  for  complete  realiza- 
tions, we  shall  hardly  find  ourselves;  if  we 
fasten  upon  capacities  and  ideals,  we  shall  be 
unable  to  miss  ourselves ;  and  in  the  presence  of 
the  profoundest  capacity,  — the  capacity  for  true 
selfhood,  and  face  to  face  with  the  sublimest 
ideal,  —  the  ideal  of  a  selfhood  in  the  full  image 
of  God,  we  shall  know  that  we  have  made  the 
great  primal  discovery. 

To  appeal  to  this  capacity,  in  the  strength  of 
the  personality  of  Christ,  is  the  high  privilege  of 
the  preacher.  Christ  is  the  force  by  which  this 
capacity  becomes  conscious  of  itself,  the  force 
by  which  this  conscious  capacity  is  heightened. 
It  must  never  be  forgotten  that  profound  moral 
experience  is  essential  to  the  due  discovery  of 
the  personal  soul.  In  the  brutal  civilizations 
of  antiquity  men  were  little  more  than  things. 
Prior  to  the  era  of  the  prophets  there  was  little 
sense  of  personality  among  the  people  of  Israel. 
The  social  moralism  of  the  prophets  was,  in  a 
way,  premature.  It  presupposed,  what  had  not 
yet  been  distinctly  discovered,  the  personal  soul 
of  the  individual  man.  The  experiences  of  great 
souls  like  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  did  much  to  edu- 
cate men  in  the  true  direction.  But  not  until 
we  hear  Jesus  preaching  by  the  sea  of  Galilee 


172  THE  INDIVIDUAL  ULTIMATE 

and  on  the  hillsides  of  Judaea  do  we  witness  the 
message  that  brings  man  to  the  consciousness 
of  himself.  The  divine  soul  of  Jesus  wrought 
within  men  the  sense  of  soul.  Here  Christian- 
ity is  unique  in  human  history.  It  opened  at 
men's  feet  infinite  abysses ;  it  showed  overhead 
infinite  heights.  It  led  men  into  the  conscious- 
ness of  moral  evil,  and  into  the  sense  of  moral 
good  with  a  power  that  made  the  soul  an  awful 
surprise  to  itself.  Nothing  is  sublimer  in  the 
annals  of  mankind  than  this  sudden  accentua- 
tion of  personality  through  the  power  of  a  tre- 
mendous moral  experience.  Men  like  Paul  and 
Augustine  and  Luther  and  Edwards  repeat  in 
themselves  the  aboriginal  spiritual  surprise.  The 
Prodigal  Sou  is  man  in  the  process  of  a  powerful 
moral  experience.  The  conscious  abuse  of  exist- 
ence, the  want,  the  shame,  the  horror  of  it ;  the 
possibility  of  recovering  the  lost  grace,  of  re- 
turning to  the  original  integrity,  issue  in  a  sense 
of  personality  that  nothing  can  shake.  "  I  Jiave 
sinned ;  "  "I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  Father ;  " 
when  words  like  these  are  the  serious  utterance 
of  the  soul,  it  is  plain  that  the  man  has  come  to 
himself.  To  make  men  see  that  the  moral  life 
in  every  soul  sinks  into  an  Inferno,  rises  into  a 
Purgatorio,  and  is  overhung  by  a  Paradiso,  is 
the  vocation  of  the  preacher.  He  finds  men 
moving  in  worlds  not  realized  ;  there  are  depths 
of  moral  suffering,  heights  of  moral  discipline, 


PERSONALITY  173 

and  distant  regions  of  moral  peace  of  which  they 
must  be  made  aware.  And  through  this  process 
of  heightened  moral  experience  the  personal 
spirit  will  steadily  rise  before  him  into  the  dis- 
tincter  and  surer  consciousness  of  self. 

Personality  is  the  word  for  the  reality  of  the 
individual  human  life.  Whether  one  can  give 
an  adequate  account  of  that  reality  to  the  reason 
or  not,  one  must  insist  upon  it.  Human  life 
ebbs  and  flows,  contracts  and  expands,  is  now 
more  and  now  less  ;  it  is  a  history  of  mutation 
and  of  difference.  Still  within  this  uncertain 
circle  there  is  somewhere  a  permanent  centre. 
The  sense  of  a  real,  abiding,  self-identical  life  is 
the  final  fact  in  consciousness.  Personality  is, 
therefore,  the  ultimate  truth  of  the  individual 
human  being;  it  is  the  one  fixed  point  that 
looks  on  tempests  and  is  never  shaken.  It  is 
the  necessary  presupposition  of  all  knowledge, 
all  moral  judgment  and  feeling,  all  moral  achieve- 
ment and  character.  It  is  the  attestation  of 
the  reality  of  man.  In  the  races  that  like  the 
Hindu  are  chiefly  meditative  and  receptive,  the 
sense  of  personality  is  weakest ;  in  peoples  that 
like  the  Anglo- American  are  marked  by  creative 
and  governing  instincts  the  consciousness  of  it 
is  strongest.  It  is  like  the  rock  in  the  river ;  it 
is  always  there,  and  in  the  normal  flow  always 
visible ;  but  under  the  freshet  it  is  covered  up, 
and  then  it  is  known  only  by  the  roar  of  the 


174  THE  INDIVIDUAL   ULTIMATE 

stream  over  it.  This  freshet  is  one  of  the  fea- 
tures of  modern  life.  The  frequency  and  the 
severity  of  it  is  the  main  reason  for  this  dis- 
cussion of  what  would  appear  to  be  the  most 
incontestible  of  all  human  certainties.  Under 
an  incessant  invasion  of  superstitions  from  the 
world  of  learning,  fads  scientific  and  social,  and 
the  swift  incoming  tide  of  incompatible  inter- 
ests, man  is  in  danger  of  losing  himself  in  a 
completely  unbiblical  sense.  The  quest  of  the 
ancient  Diogenes  was  for  a  man ;  the  search  of 
the  modern  Diogenes  is  for  himself.  He  has 
disappeared  in  the  labyrinth  of  nerves  and 
nerve-functions ;  or  he  has  been  caught  in  the 
machinery  of  habit,  and  in  the  whirl  of  the  au- 
tomatic wheel  he  has  become  invisible ;  or  among 
the  quicksands  of  the  "  states  of  mind  "  theory, 
and  in  the  mud  that  gathers  in  the  channel 
under  the  "  stream  of  consciousness,"  he  has 
sunk  out  of  sight.  The  utterance  of  the  Greek 
oracle  assumed  that  the  knower  and  his  object 
were  real,  and  that  they  were  together.  That 
oracle  is  dumb ;  its  assumptions  are  no  longer 
treated  as  divine ;  and  to  know  himself  it  is 
to-day  incumbent  upon  a  man  to  find  himself. 
The  answer  to  this  challenge  is  through  the  as- 
sertion of  the  soul  in  knowledge  and  in  charac- 
ter, in  truth  and  in  love  ;  and  the  study  of  man 
as  the  creator  of  his  own  world. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  SOCIAL  ULTIMATE:  HUMANITY 

I 

CARLYLE'S  compassion  for  individual  sufferers 
is  well  known.  In  concrete  instances  of  distress 
no  one  could  be  more  considerate.  For  the  mass 
of  mankind  he  had  little  but  scorn.  His  feeling 
for  the  human  race  is  expressed  in  his  judgment 
upon  the  population  of  Great  Britain  :  "  Forty 
millions,  mostly  fools."  He  reminds  one  of  the 
New  England  minister  who  said :  "  I  detest  hu- 
manity, but  I  love  individual  men."  There  is  a 
class  of  thinkers  to  whom  the  race  counts  for 
little,  to  whom  individual  souls  are  the  sole  con- 
cern. On  the  other  hand  is  Emerson  who  con- 
fessed :  "  I  love  man,  but  I  hate  men."  The 
general  idea  of  man  was  full  of  attraction  and 
significance  for  Emerson,  but  the  particular  per- 
sons in  whom  the  general  idea  was  embodied  did 
not  at  all  interest  him.  They  were  inferior,  and 
they  did  not  appeal  to  imagination  and  sympa- 
thy. That  Emerson  yielded  to  this  aristocratic 
revulsion  from  the  multitude  is  not  for  one  mo- 
ment to  be  admitted.  He  simply  confesses,  in 


176  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

absolute  honesty,  the  strong  current  of  desire. 
The  ideal  man  engaged  and  inspired  his  spirit, 
the  abstract  man  was  to  him  immensely  signifi- 
cant, the  concept  humanity  was  his  native  air. 
This  is  indeed  the  temptation  of  the  idealist.  I 
happened  to  meet  Phillips  Brooks  fresh  from 
the  reading  of  Cabot's  "  Life  of  Emerson,"  and 
he  quoted  with  much  merriment  Emerson's  con- 
fession :  "  I  love  man,  but  I  hate  men  "  as  an 
expression  of  his  own  instincts.  Never  was  there 
a  more  democratic  soul  than  Phillips  Brooks, 
never  was  there  a  man  who  served  individual 
cases  of  need  with  more  intense  and  rapt  devo- 
tion ;  and  yet  this  great  spirit  knew  his  own 
weakness.  He  saw  at  once  the  profound  criti- 
cism which  Emerson  made  upon  himself,  and 
which  held  good  for  the  idealistic  tendency  in 
all  men.  The  realist  cries  that  the  individual 
is  everything ;  the  idealist  contends  that  the 
race  is  the  great  object  of  interest. 

There  is  a  mood  in  which  both  individualism 
and  racialism  are  reconciled.  One  can  think  of  a 
man  like  Livingstone  traversing  the  Dark  Con- 
tinent, everywhere  meeting  the  saddest  sights. 
Men  and  women  appear  before  him  apparently 
but  little  above  the  brutes.  The  sight  of  the 
eye  affects  the  heart ;  and  yet  this  great  mis- 
sionary of  civilization  is  somehow  able  to  dis- 
cern in  every  degraded  human  being  the  image 


HUMANITY  177 

of  God,  the  possible  disciple  of  Jesus  Christ. 
That  is  no  doubt  the  mood  into  which  Emerson 
fought  his  way  ;  it  is  the  mood  in  which  Phillips 
Brooks  lived  his  beautiful  life ;  it  is  the  mood 
in  which  every  genuine  believer  in  man  must 
finally  rest.  The  concrete  and  the  abstract,  the 
particular  and  the  universal,  the  real  and  the 
ideal  must  somehow  be  seen  together,  and  as 
together  making  up  the  whole  truth  of  life. 

Here  one  discovers  how  close  to  feeling  and 
practical  interest  are  some  of  the  strangest  philo- 
sophical formulas.  At  first  sight  nothing  could 
be  more  unpractical  than  the  endless  debate  be- 
tween the  mediaeval  realist  and  nominalist.  But 
when  one  carries  the  debate  out  of  the  heathen 
hands  of  the  schoolmen  back  to  its  origin  in 
Greek  philosophy,  one  begins  to  see  how  pro- 
foundly vital  it  is.  The  old  Protagorean  nomi- 
nalism, is  simply  the  theoretic  account  of  Car- 
lyle's  compassion  for  the  particular  person,  and 
his  contempt  for  the  mass  of  mankind.  Indi- 
viduals are  all  that  we  have,  says  the  Greek 
sophist ;  general  views  are  fictions  and  the  pro- 
per objects  of  philosophic  scorn.  Emerson's 
love  of  the  universal  and  his  disregard  for  the 
individual  man  is  nothing  but  Platonism  in 
feeling.  The  idea,  the  general  view,  the  notion 
is  not  simply  real,  it  is  the  only  reality.  The 
world  of  reality  is  extra-mental,  extra-human  ; 


178  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

it  is  a  world  where  general  ideas  exist  in  a  sub- 
lime harmony ;  and  the  vision  of  this  supersen- 
sible realm  and  not  the  fields  of  time  and  space 
is  the  reward  of  wisdom.  What  is  this  but  the 
philosophic  consecration  of  our  love  of  man,  and 
the  philosophic  justification  of  our  aversion  to 
men.  Livingstone's  vision  of  God  in  the  poor- 
est soul,  his  detection  of  the  possible  disciple  of 
Christ  in  the  most  degraded  human  being,  is  but 
the  great  insight  of  Aristotle  applied  to  life. 
The  individual  and  the  universal,  the  particular 
thing  and  the  general  truth,  the  real  and  the 
ideal  belong  together,  and  together  make  up 
the  one  world.  Here  is  a  witness  in  an  unex- 
pected quarter  to  the  fact  that  all  genuine 
thinking  concerns  human  feeling  and  conduct, 
and  that  the  grand  philosophical  debates  of  the 
world  need  only  to  be  translated  into  their  origi- 
nal interests  in  order  to  disclose  their  high  and 
enduring  vitality. 

The  most  august  instance  of  the  mood  in 
which  the  individual  and  the  universal  are  re- 
conciled has  yet  to  be  named.  It  is  the  Judg- 
ment Parable  of  Jesus  found  in  the  twenty-fifth 
chapter  of  Matthew.  Nowhere  is  ethical  nomi- 
nalism so  impressively  condemned  as  here.  No- 
where does  mere  idealism  meet  with  such  con- 
suming scorn  as  in  these  sublime  utterances  of 
Jesus.  The  men  who  see  nothing  in  human 


HUMANITY  179 

suffering  but  animal  suffering,  and  the  men  who 
worship  an  ideal  out  of  all  relation  to  the  suffer- 
ing world  pass  under  a  terrible  sentence.  The 
surprise  of  the  ethical  nominalist  and  abstract 
idealist  is  in  these  words  :  "  Lord,  when  saw  we 
thee  an  hungred,  or  athirst,  or  a  stranger,  or 
naked,  or  sick,  or  in  prison,  and  did  not  minister 
unto  thee  ? "  The  answer  is  in  these  words  : 
"  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  Inasmuch  as  ye  did 
it  not  unto  one  of  these  least,  ye  did  it  not  unto 
me."  The  surprise  of  the  Christian  is  in  his 
unconscious  Christianity  :  "  Lord,  when  saw  we 
thee  an  hungred,  and  fed  thee  ?  or  athirst,  and 
gave  thee  drink  ?  And  when  saw  we  thee  a 
stranger,  and  took  thee  in  ?  or  naked,  and 
clothed  thee  ?  And  when  saw  we  thee  sick,  or 
in  prison,  and  came  unto  thee  ?  "  The  answer 
explains  the  mystery  :  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it 
unto  one  of  these  my  brethren,  even  these  least, 
ye  did  it  unto  me."  1  They  looked  upon  men 
as  men  ;  they  ministered  to  human  suffering  as 
human  suffering  ;  and  they  found  that  their  ser- 
vice to  individuals  involved  humanity,  that  their 
humanity  involved  Christian  humanity.  Thus 
does  Jesus  bind  person  to  person  ;  thus  does  he 
lift  the  commonwealth  of  persons  in  their  ordi- 
nary animal  needs  into  a  life  identified  with  his 

own. 

1  Matthew  xxv.  37-45. 


180  THE  SOCIAL  ULTIMATE 

What  is  humanity  ?  Is  it  possible  to  give  a 
definite  answer  to  this  question  ?  Humanity  in 
this  discussion  means  several  things.  It  means 
that  human  beings  constitute  a  kind,  as  birds  or 
quadrupeds  constitute  a  kind.  It  is  true  that 
no  kind  stands  wholly  by  itself  ;  in  every  kind 
differentiation  rises,  hi  some  instances,  to  great 
heights,  while  in  others  it  sinks  almost  out  of 
sight.  There  are  difficulties  of  classification  on 
the  boundaries  of  all  forms  of  life.  Is  the  bat 
a  bird  or  a  mammal  ?  Is  the  flying  fish  to  be 
classified  upward  or  downward  ?  On  the  bound- 
aries of  the  human  race  similar  difficulties  occur. 
These  difficulties  are  illustrated  by  the  famous 
colloquy  between  the  child  and  its  attendant  at 
the  menagerie  :  "  Where  is  the  bear  ?  There, 
standing  by  the  Irishman.  Which  is  the  Irish- 
man? The  animal  with  the  umbrella."  On 
the  evolutionary  hypothesis  these  difficulties,  at 
an  earlier  date,  must  have  been  overwhelming. 
At  the  present  time,  however,  the  general  dis- 
tinction of  the  human  race  is  obvious.  The 
distinguishing  traits  of  man  are  shared  in  a  per- 
ceptible degree  by  nearly  all  human  beings,  so 
that  they  may  be  said  to  form  a  class  by  them- 
selves. 

Humanity  means,  in  the  second  place,  that 
the  significant  mark  of  man  is  the  capacity  for 
a  life  ordered  in  moral  reason.  Man  is  capable 


HUMANITY  181 

of  gaining  a  moral  view  of  the  world,  and  of 
proposing  for  himself  an  end  in  accordance  with 
this  view.  Righteousness  is  the  supreme  inter- 
est of  human  society,  and  the  perception  of  this 
fact  and  a  life  ordered  in  homage  to  it  is  a  pos- 
sibility for  all  men.  In  the  carrying  out  of  this 
moral  programme  in  a  moral  world,  the  need  of 
God  and  his  reality  are  first  discovered.  And 
that  man  has  the  capacity  to  enter 'into  covenant 
with  the  Supreme  moral  reason  is  but  another 
way  of  stating  his  essential  characteristic.  He 
is  made  in  the  image  of  God ;  that  is,  he  lives  in 
a  moral  world,  and  his  vocation  is  to  live  for 
ends  in  keeping  with  that  world.  He  is  a  son 
of  God ;  that  is,  there  is  an  essential  kinship  be- 
tween God  and  man,  and  man's  highest  distinc- 
tion is  his  capacity  for  moral  response  to  God's 
moral  appeal.  It  is  believed  that  this  note  is 
universally  distinctive  of  mankind.  There  is  in 
all  men  the  capacity  for  a  life  ordered  in  moral 
reason ;  there  is  between  all  men  and  the  Infi- 
nite an  indestructible  affinity,  an  essential  an- 
swerableness  as  of  the  image  to  the  original; 
there  is  in  all  men  the  filial  possibility  which 
when  spoken  to  with  prevailing  power  becomes 
filial  fact,  filial  experience,  and  distinct  sonhood 
to  God. 

Humanity   means,  in   the    third   place,  that 
God's  fatherly  purpose  in  Christ  covers  all  men. 


182  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

What  God  intends  for  one  or  some  he  intends 
for  all.  This  is  one  great  meaning  of  the  Incar- 
nation. God's  intention  for  Jesus  Christ  is  sig- 
nificant of  his  intention  for  mankind.  He  wills 
holiness  for  the  whole  race,  for  each  and  for  all ; 
and  in  pursuance  of  this  goal  which  he  has  set 
up  for  every  human  being,  he  sends  forth  his 
Spirit  to  strive  with  men.  God  is  on  the  side  of 
every  soul  that  he  has  made ;  he  is  for  it,  and 
not  against  it,  forever  and  ever.  Whatever 
the  issues  of  time  and  eternity  may  be,  this 
truth  is  clear  to  every  believer  in  Jesus  Christ, 
that  the  will  of  God  proposes  for  every  man  an 
infinite  good,  and  that  the  discipline  of  exist- 
ence and  the  entire  mechanism  of  retribution 
are  but  God's  ways  of  seeking  to  hold  or  to  re- 
cover the  soul  to  the  divine  purpose  of  its  being. 
Without  the  shelter  of  God's  loving  intention 
over  eVery  human  life  there  is  no  gospel,  there 
is  no  humanity.  We  bind  mankind  into  one  by 
the  one  purpose  of  infinite  and  everlasting  love 
that  covers  the  race.  The  secret  place  of  the 
Most  High,  the  shadow  of  the  Almighty  is  his 
purpose  of  good  and  only  good  in  creating  men  ; 
and  it  is  nothing  but  the  witness  to  the  sincerity 
of  this  purpose  that  he  sends  forth  in  its  behalf 
the  Holy  Spirit  of  realization. 

Humanity  means,  finally,  the  universal   an- 
swerableness  to  moral  standards,  the  universal 


HUMANITY  183 

amenableness  to  the  moral  God.  Here  is  the 
universal  distinction :  man  is  subject  to  moral 
judgment ;  he  is  under  the  government  of  the 
Supreme  conscience.  This  does  not  mean  that 
class-interests  are  necessarily  illegitimate.  Privi- 
leges and  immunities  are  often  essential  to  the 
public  service,  as  when  the  general  commands 
his  army  from  a  position  miles  away  from  the 
zone  of  fire.  The  family  is  a  private  institution, 
and  yet  it  is  essential  to  social  good.  The  ser- 
vice of  the  world  is  impossible  otherwise  than  in 
and  through  particular  affections  and  special 
interests.  The  rivers  feed  the  sea ;  but  they 
have  their  own  distinct  life  as  an  essential  ante- 
cedent to  this  work.  There  is  room  for  the 
specialization  of  mankind;  there  is  indeed  a 
demand  for  it.  Under  the  life  of  the  family, 
the  vocation,  the  clan,  the  brotherhoods  of  sci- 
ence and  trade,  and  the  fellowship  of  the  nation, 
there  is  eternal  fitness.  But  these  interests  are 
subject  to  a  reference  beyond  themselves.  They 
are  brought  to  the  judgment  seat  of  the  brother- 
hood of  man.  Whatever  in  trade,  in  society,  in 
education,  in  government,  and  in  religion,  sets 
itself  against  man  as  man,  is  base,  and  has  no 
business  to  be.  The  supreme  characteristic  of 
man  does  not  lie  in  those  things  which  distin- 
guish him  from  other  men,  but  in  those  things 
which  he  possesses  in  common  with  all  men. 


184  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

Not  in  birth,  endowment,  position,  wealth,  power, 
and  fame  does  the  great  distinction  lie,  but  in 
the  universal  reason  and  conscience,  in  the  moral 
equality  of  mankind  in  the  presence  of  the  moral 
God.  In  the  Parable  of  the  talents  we  find  un- 
equal ability  expressed  in  equal  fidelity  equally 
rewarded.  To  the  man  whose  five  talents  be- 
came ten,  and  to  him  whose  two  talents  became 
four,  the  same  commendation  is  given  :  "  Well 
done,  good  and  faithful  servant ;  thou  hast  been 
faithful  over  a  few  things,  I  will  set  thee  over 
many  things :  enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy 
lord." l  In  the  Parable  of  the  pounds  we  see 
equal  ability  expressed  in  unequal  fidelity,  un- 
equally rewarded.  In  the  case  where  the  pound 
became  ten  pounds,  the  servant  is  distinctly 
commended  and  set  over  ten  cities ;  in  the  case 
where  the  pound  became  five  pounds,  the  servant 
is  without  special  commendation  set  over  five 
cities.2  In  the  Parable  of  the  laborers  we  are 
shown  the  value  of  motive  in  work.  Those  who 
had  labored  the  whole  day,  and  those  who  had 
labored  only  a  part  of  the  day,  or  even  for  one 
hour,  received  the  same  wages.  The  three  para- 
bles belong  together.  One  emphasizes  unequal 
ability  and  equal  fidelity;  another  throws  into 
relief  equal  ability  and  unequal  fidelity ;  while 
still  another  considers  not  the  product,  but  the 
1  Matthew  xxv.  14-24.  2  Luke  xix.  11-19. 


HUMANITY  185 

motive  of  labor.1  These  parables  are  the  politi- 
cal economy  of  the  kingdom  of  God ;  and  they 
show  human  life  in  a  grand  equalization  in  the 
presence  of  God.  One  kind,  one  kind  whose 
distinguishing  mark  is  kinship  to  God,  whose 
career  is  covered  with  the  purpose  of  Infinite 
love,  whose  standing  is  upon  the  ground  of  con- 
science in  the  presence  of  the  Eternal  conscience; 
that  is  humanity. 

II 

In  another  volume  I  have  treated  of  some  of 
the  grand  historic  perils  of  humanity.2  The 
human  interpretation  of  existence  has  had  to 
fight  its  way  from  the  beginning.  Never  at 
any  time  has  it  been  a  secure  possession  of  man- 
kind. It  has  been  a  militant  interpretation  ;  it 
has  survived  and  conquered  because  those  who 
were  for  it  have  been  stronger  than  those  who 
were  against  it.  The  historic  campaign  between 
the  man  and  the  brute  is  far  from  an  end.  On 
the  various  levels  of  the  flesh,  the  intellect,  and 
the  spirit,  the  conflict  still  goes  on.  Over  the 
whole  field  of  time  there  is  indeed  an  undeniable 
and  an  immeasurably  important  victory  of  the 
man  over  the  brute.  Upon  the  whole,  history  is 
the  record  of  the  defeat  of  inhumanity.  Still 

1  A.  B.  Brace,  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Jesus,  pp.  178-225. 

2  The  New  Epoch  for  Faith,  chap.  ii. 


186  THE  SOCIAL    ULTIMATE 

this  defeat  has  never  been  decisive.  Human 
interests  and  values  have  never  been  free  from 
the  menace  of  the  unsubdued  brutality  in  the 
world.  An  invasion  from  beneath,  an  incursion 
of  inhumanity,  is  still  among  the  things  to  be 
dreaded.  The  historic  root  of  bitterness  still 
lives,  and  apples  of  Sodom  continue  to  compete 
with  the  fruits  of  the  tree  of  life. 

There  are,  however,  special  perils  peculiar  to 
our  time,  surrounding  the  human  interpretation 
of  existence.  The  grand  historic  danger  is  seen 
by  every  serious  person  ;  but  the  new  forms  of 
menace  are  not  universally  discerned.  The  deep- 
est, as  well  as  the  most  general,  of  these  forms 
of  menace  is  what  may  be  called  the  naturalistic 
view  of  life.  According  to  this  view,  human 
life  is  but  the  extension  of  the  lower  life  of  the 
world.  All  life  is  essentially  one  in  kind.  Con- 
tinuity is  the  great  note  in  the  vital  concert. 
The  essential  problems  of  all  life  are  two,  —  the 
food  problem  and  the  race  problem.  Self- 
preservation  and  self-reproduction  are  the  heart 
of  all  existence.  All  industry  and  all  society, 
all  thinking  and  all  behavior,  have  their  meaning 
with  reference  to  these  two  problems.  Life, 
with  its  double  task,  is  wholly  of  this  world ;  it 
is  concerned  with  no  other ;  it  knows  of  no  other. 
Natural  history  covers  the  movement  and  be- 
havior of  life  alike  in  the  human  and  the  sub- 


HUMANITY  187 

human  spheres.  The  main  business  of  man  and 
beast  is  the  same ;  it  is  to  maintain  life  and  to 
repeat  it  in  descendants.  Political  economy, 
ethics,  social  science,  government,  and  art  are  as 
truly,  although  not  so  fully,  predicable  of  the 
bee  as  of  the  human  being.  The  intellectual 
and  moral  life  of  man  is  sound  only  as  it  relates 
to  self-continuance  and  self -reproduction ;  it  is 
genuine  only  so  far  as  it  is  an  amplification  of 
the  intellectual  and  moral  life  of  the  animal. 
Heaven  and  hell,  other  than  happy  or  unhappy 
terrestial  moods  and  conditions,  are  unknown  to 
this  view;  the  eternal  consequence  of  human 
behavior  is  a  poetic  exaggeration  ;  right  and 
wrong  have  an  essentially  biological  meaning, 
and  transcendental  significance  they  have  none  ; 
the  thirst  of  the  human  soul  for  the  living  God 
is  a  fanaticism,  a  form  of  disease ;  the  question 
of  life  after  death  is  one  that  must  be  settled  in 
the  negative.  The  whole  supersensuous  and 
divine  meaning  of  existence  becomes  mythologi- 
cal ;  the  unique  dignity  and  career  of  man  is 
lost  in  his  complete  identification  with  the  life 
below  him. 

This  is  the  profoundest  and  the  most  serious 
menace  to  the  human  interpretation  of  man's  ex- 
istence. It  must  be  met  with  the  whole  power 
of  an  inspired  humanity.  It  is  a  caricature,  and 
as  such  excites  indignation  ;  but  it  is  not  a  con- 


188  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

• 
scious  caricature.     It  is  the  mood  into  which 

men  drop  when  the  vigorous  application  of  con- 
science to  life  has  ceased.  The  interpretation 
of  human  existence  downward  is  inevitable  when 
its  upward  affinities  cease  to  be  urgent,  when 
they  become  altogether  passive  and  dim.  The 
natural  man  always  looks  for  his  kindred  below 
him,  and  where  the  spiritual  man  is  as  good  as 
non-existent,  life  sinks  almost  without  protest. 
This  permanent  tendency,  in  the  absence  of  the 
counter-pull  of  vigorous  conscience,  to  construe 
the  man  into  the  animal,  has  been  immensely 
strengthened  by  the  scientific  attitude  of  the  last 
fifty  years.  Natural  inclination  has  been  fixed 
by  culture;  and  the  mood  that  meets  the 
preacher  of  the  Gospel  of  the  divine  humanity 
is  that  of  spiritual  incapacity  and  incredulity. 
How  can  these  things  be  ?  is  the  strange  ques- 
tion that  comes  up  from  multitudes. 

Much  has  been  done  to  overcome  this  habit ; 
but  much  remains  to  be  done.  The  emphasis 
must  be  laid  upon  the  uniqueness  of  man.  Con- 
tinuity is  an  overworked  truth ;  it  must  be  re- 
lieved by  the  truth  of  human  distinction.  The 
transformation  of  animal  instincts  in  man  by 
moral  reason  must  be  exhibited  as  the  normal 
human  life.  The  presence  of  love  must  be 
shown  to  give  a  new  character  to  the  animal 
endowment  of  mankind.  The  human  home  is 


HUMANITY  189 

founded  in  instinct  as  transfigured  by  moral 
reason.  Business  with  all  its  outrages  is  still  a 
moral  fellowship.  This  is  attested  by  the  legal 
system  of  the  land,  which  is  an  imperfect  ex- 
pression, but  still  an  expression,  of  the  sense  of 
social  justice.  That  business  is  essentially  a 
moral  fellowship  is  further  attested  by  the  fact 
that  it  is  the  subject  of  unsparing  moral  judg- 
ment. That  ethics  deals  not  only  with  results 
but  also  with  motives  is  evident.  Behavior  must 
date  itself  from  within,  the  pure  act  from  the 
pure  spirit.  Government  is  the  highest  expres- 
sion of  the  social  conscience,  and  as  such  is  a 
uniquely  human  institution.  Obligation  covers 
mankind,  and  again  the  human  race  lives  in  a 
moral  order.  The  cry  for  the  fellowship  of  the 
Infinite  is  the  superlative  distinction  of  man. 
He  was  made  for  God,  and  he  cannot  rest  until 
he  rests  in  God.  In  him  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being ;  and  in  consequence,  human  life 
in  its  animal  endowment  and  functions,  in  its 
natural  instincts  and  order  is  wholly  transcend- 
ent in  its  ultimate  significance.  It  is  a  value  to 
which  there  is,  on  the  earth,  no  parallel.  Human 
beings  are  a  kind  by  themselves  ;  and  the  human 
interpretation  of  existence  is  but  holding  the 
race  to  its  own  uniqueness.  The  normal  being 
of  man  is  in  love,  and  love  is  of  concern  to 
the  Infinite ;  it  is  part  of  the  highest  meaning 


190  THE  SOCIAL  ULTIMATE 

of  the  world.  The  failure  in  love  is  man's  su- 
preme failure ;  it  is  his  sin.  It  is  despite  done 
to  the  Highest,  and  again  concerns  all  worlds. 
Thus  with  the  moral  organization  of  human  life, 
with  the  power  of  its  moral  victory  and  the 
shame  of  its  moral  defeat,  and  above  all,  with 
the  consciousness  of  the  moral  Deity  whose  in- 
spiration is  its  understanding,  the  preacher  is  to 
meet  and  defy  this  peril  of  humanity. 

The  scientific  conception  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest  is  begging  hard  to  be  adopted  by 
theology.  The  supply  of  food  upon  the  animal 
level  is  limited,  and  nature  produces  organisms 
in  bewildering  profusion.  These  enter  into  the 
sternest  struggle  with  one  another  for  a  share 
in  the  restricted  food  supply.  Since  there  is 
not  food  enough  for  all  the  forms  of  life,  the 
stronger  crowd  the  weaker  to  the  wall,  obtain 
possession  of  the  treasure,  and  so  survive.  This 
may  be  an  admirable  method  for  bringing  up 
to  a  high  standard  the  physical  excellence  of 
any  race.  There  may  be,  upon  the  whole,  little 
objection  to  it  upon  the  purely  animal  level.  It 
is  obviously  applicable  to  man  upon  the  animal 
plane.  Population  is  still  kept  down  in  human 
society  by  the  same  fatal  pressure  that  rests 
upon  the  lower  races.  More  human  beings  are 
brought  into  existence  than  can  be  adequately 
supported.  This  insufficient  support  is  extended 


HUMANITY  191 

by  the  strong  through  their  own  better  endow- 
ment ;  but  the  weak  have  no  resource  but  death. 
The  appalling  death-rate  among  the  world's 
children  is  an  attestation  of  the  fact  that  when 
men  live  on  the  animal  level  the  universe  deals 
with  them  on  the  animal  method. 

On  the  animal  level  death  has  been  called  the 
servant  of  life.  This  is  an  ambiguous  state- 
ment. If  a  lion's  family  of  male  and  female 
and  four  cubs  are  in  excess  of  the  available 
supply  of  food,  the  two  weaker  cubs  die,  and 
two  results  follow.  The  reduced  family  are 
now  in  far  less  straightened  circumstances ;  the 
father  and  the  mother  and  the  two  surviving 
cubs  become  fat  and  flourishing.  Their  life  has 
been  improved  by  the  death  of  their  weaker 
relatives.  And  since  the  continuance  of  lion- 
life  has  been  committed  to  the  stronger  surviv- 
ing cubs,  death  again  becomes  the  servant  of 
life.  But  there  is  another  side  to  the  family 
history.  How  would  this  improvement  appear 
to  the  two  cubs  that  were  killed  because  nature 
had  not  given  them  sufficient  strength  to  live  ? 
Of  whose  life  is  death  the  servant  ?  Not  surely 
of  the  dead  cubs.  There  is,  therefore,  a  vast 
region  of  existence  where  death  is  not  the  ser- 
vant, but  the  extinguisher  of  life.  And  this  is 
not  the  whole  story.  Death  may  indirectly  im- 
prove the  life  that  it  spares  by  sweeping  out  of 


192  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

existence  competing  forms  of  life,  and  by  forbid- 
ding them  to  express  themselves  in  descendants. 
But  on  the  animal  level,  death  and  individualism 
are  in  absolute  enmity.  Death  is  never  the  ser- 
vant of  the  individual  organism,  it  is  always  and 
only  its  absolute  destroyer.  In  so  far  as  man  is 
a  physical  organism  and  nothing  more,  death  im- 
proves him  by  extinction. 

Now  the  adoption  by  theology  of  the  idea  of 
the  survival  of  the  fittest  simply  brings  man  back 
to  the  animal  level.  Multitudes  are  produced 
in  order  that  nature  may  make  a  selection  of  the 
strongest  for  the  purpose  of  becoming  parents 
of  the  next  generation.  In  each  generation  the 
waste  of  life  is  enormous.  Election  to  life  covers 
but  the  few  finest  specimens ;  reprobation  to 
death  is  the  fate  of  the  overwhelming  majority 
among  the  lower  races.  This  is  the  new  Calvin- 
ism that  is  tempting  thinkers.  It  is  the  Calvin- 
ism of  nature ;  it  is  a  theology  elaborated  from 
the  method  of  the  universe  with  animal  life. 
When  applied  to  man  it  is  the  translation  of  the 
method  of  the  brute  world  into  the  human  world. 
It  means  that  more  souls  come  into  existence 
than  can  be  educated  into  permanent  power.  It 
signifies  that  the  enormous  multitudes  of  human 
beings  that  are  born  are  expressly  produced 
in  order  that  a  better  selection  for  life  may  be 
made,  and  that  the  finer  election  involves  the 


HUMANITY  193 

wider  reprobation.  On  this  ground  one  has  one's 
humanity  to  win,  and  one  can  never  be  sure  that 
one  has  been  made  strong  enough  to  win  it. 
Humanity  is  thus  an  ideal  which  a  few  are  born 
to  compass,  but  which  for  men  in  general  is  a 
hopeless  impossibility.  The  race  of  man  thus 
becomes  a  race  in  an  animal  world.  As  a  whole 
its  affinities  are  with  the  beasts  that  perish ;  as  a 
kind  it  has  no  original  and  everlasting  relation 
to  the  Infinite  conscience  and  pity.  It  is  im- 
possible to  stop  here.  The  method  of  the  animal 
world  must  be  imported  as  a  whole.  Natural 
selection  is  in  order  to  improve  the  breed ;  the 
individual  is  of  account  only  as  the  progenitor 
of  the  better  race.  Nature  puts  an  end  to  him 
when  he  can  no  longer  serve  her.  If  this  is  the 
way  in  which  the  universe  treats  man,  let  us  face 
the  consequences.  The  many  are  called,  but  only 
the  few  are  chosen  as  distinct  citizens  in  the 
commonwealth  of  moral  worth.  But  these  are 
chosen  only  as  the  parents  of  a  race  of  increasing 
moral  dignity ;  when  they  can  no  longer  promote 
the  end  for  which  they  were  elected,  death  comes 
and  puts  into  execution  the  decree  of  final  repro- 
bation. Thus  the  mood  that  cannot  accept  hu- 
manity as  made  in  the  image  of  God,  that  seeks 
by  scientific  methods  to  discover  a  divine  hu- 
manity within  the  compass  of  an  animal  race, 
ends  with  the  loss  even  of  its  elect,  the  loss 


194  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

too  of  the  God  whose  determinations  are  wholly 
without  moral  character.  The  method  of  nature 
with  the  animal  transferred  to  the  human  sphere, 
and  converted  into  the  method  of  the  universe 
with  man,  fails  to  elevate  the  animal,  but  it  suc- 
ceeds in  deposing  and  degrading  man.  The  con- 
clusion is  that  the  law  of  humanity  is  found 
nowhere  but  in  humanity. 

A  few  words  will  suffice  for  the  peril  to  hu- 
manity from  the  idea  of  conditional  immortality.1 
It  is  a  compromise  with  difficulty  and  a  compro- 
mise at  a  fearful  expense.  It  seeks  to  get  rid 
of  endless  punishment,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
avoid  the  affirmation  or  implication  of  universal 
salvation.  It  is  an  endeavor  to  escape  from  the 
necessity  of  making  brutal  man  immortal.  It 
tries  to  create  a  new  motive  for  righteousness : 
"  Be  good  and  you  will  live  forever."  On  all 
grounds  it  seems  to  me  one  of  the  least  rea- 
sonable of  human  opinions.  It  recognizes  no 
world-plan  under  man's  historic  struggle.  The 
universe  is  neutral  toward  man's  conflict  with 
the  brutality  that  means  extinction.  It  has  an 
exaggerated  notion  of  freedom.  God  creates 
men  free ;  he  provides  the  field  of  battle ;  men 
by  their  use  or  abuse  of  freedom  fix  either  their 
immortality  or  their  mortality.  Everything  de- 

1  For  fuller  discussion,  see  The  Witness  to  Immortality,  pp. 
300-310. 


HUMANITY  195 

pends  upon  the  individual  freeman ;  and  God 
might  as  well  not  be.  But  environments  differ, 
and  endowments  differ,  and  the  question  comes, 
Who  made  these  things  to  differ  ?  The  neutral 
God  becomes  the  old  Calvinistic  God  of  election 
and  reprobation.  David  did  not  kill  Uriah ;  he 
only  put  him  in  the  line  of  battle  where  he  knew 
that  he  could  not  live.  God  leaves  it  open  to 
all  men  to  become  immortal ;  but  some  men  he 
brings  into  the  world  from  an  ancestry  so  high 
and  puts  them  into  an  environment  so  pure  and 
inspiring  that  their  immortality  is  secure  from 
the  moment  of  their  arrival ;  while  other  men  he 
sends  into  life  loaded  with  an  evil  inheritance 
and  overwhelmed  with  a  hostile  environment,  and 
thus  from  the  beginning  decrees  their  extinction. 
Freedom  without  a  world-plan  is  a  poor  philoso- 
phy of  human  life,  especially  since  the  world-plan 
cannot  be  suppressed,  but  emerges  in  the  im- 
mense moral  inequalities  of  inheritance  and  en- 
vironment as  an  unconditional  decree  of  some  to 
endless  existence,  and  of  others  to  final  extinction. 
But  the  criticism  that  concerns  us  here  is  that 
the  idea  of  conditional  immortality  breaks  up  the 
sense  of  the  uniqueness  of  mankind.  We  must 
fight  it  in  the  name  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God 
from  whom  we  date  the  human  race.  The  link 
between  the  saint  and  God  is  part  of  the  chain 
that  binds  the  race  to  God.  Men  begin,  con- 


196  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

tinue,  and  end  in  the  moral  will  of  God  ;  they  are 
covered  by  his  Fatherly  purpose.  Their  sin  is 
the  sin  of  children  against  the  Infinite  Father ; 
their  life  both  in  its  goodness  and  baseness  is  in 
everlasting  relation  to  his.  If  the  preacher  is  to 
look  upon  every  man  as  a  child  of  God,  if  he  is 
to  consider  every  human  being  as  made  expressly 
to  repeat  in  himself  the  image  of  Christ,  he  must 
disown  conditional  immortality,  and  expose  the 
compromise  in  which  it  originates  and  the  com- 
pound which  it  is  of  superficialities  and  con- 
tradictions. It  wholly  ignores  the  supreme 
difficulty  that  besets  belief  in  immortality,  the 
dependence  of  the  mind  upon  the  brain ;  it  dis- 
regards the  enormous  inequalities  of  inheritance 
and  environment  which  make  the  question  of  fit- 
ness to  survive  death  unanswerable  by  man,  and 
which  may  show  to  the  most  worthy  judge  Eter- 
nal that  the  criminal  is,  all  things  considered,  a 
higher  moral  value  than  the  saint ;  it  introduces 
Pharisaism  and  old-world  notions  of  aristocracy 
which  have  no  place  in  an  ethical  view  of  the 
universe  ;  it  begins  with  an  impossible  conception 
of  freedom,  and  ends  with  an  implicit  world-plan 
that  operates  with  absolute  immunity  from  jus- 
tice ;  and  it  breaks  down  the  racial  consciousness 
into  which  Christianity  has  been  bringing  the 
nations,  reduces  sonhood  to  God  from  a  fact  to 
a  bare  possibility,  and  transforms  humanity 


HUMANITY  197 

from  a  reality  into  a  bloodless  and  incompetent 
ideal. 

The  media  through  which  all  the  enemies  of 
the  unique  distinction  of  man  work,  past  and 
present,  are  an  inhuman  view  of  the  universe  and 
man's  inhumanity  to  man.  Atheism  and  a  full 
humanity  are  mutually  destructive.  The  extra- 
physical  life  of  the  race,  its  higher  wisdom,  no- 
bler morality,  loftier  love  and  spirit,  must  come 
to  appear  as  useless  and  vain  under  the  fixed 
indifference  of  a  godless  universe.  Inside  the 
infinite  domain  of  a  brutal  universe,  men  must 
fall  from  their  properly  human  ideals.  The  king- 
dom of  love  in  the  heart  of  an  atheistic  world  is 
an  impossible  enterprise.  The  strain  is  too  much 
for  mankind.  The  Christian  conception  of  hu- 
man society  would  seem  to  be  the  vainest  dream, 
if  all  things  other  than  human  are  against  it. 
Man  is  no  match  for  a  wholly  inhuman  universe. 
Sooner  or  later  the  most  heroic  must  see  that  it 
is  but  vaulting  ambition  for  man  to  seek  a  king- 
dom of  love  in  the  face  of  infinite  brutality.  Fix 
in  the  human  mind  the  idea  that  the  character 
of  the  Infinite  is  inhuman,  and  the  ethical  ideal- 
ism into  which  the  successive  generations  of  youth 
inevitably  flower  becomes  merely  subjective,  the 
play  of  imagination  upon  physical  interests  the 
aurora  borealis  of  a  polar  humanity.  Stoicism 
lived  because  it  was  able  to  put  itself  in  league 


198  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

with  the  universe.  Epictetus  and  Marcus  Au- 
relius  ground  their  ideals  upon  the  character  of 
the  Infinite.  Make  the  sum  of  things  indifferent 
to  man,  and  Epicureanism  becomes  the  creed  of 
the  race. 

The  preacher  must  guard  the  character  of 
the  Infinite  as  the  highest  human  interest.  All 
theories  that  limit  the  Divine  regard  for  man- 
kind are  indictments  framed  against  the  char- 
acter of  God.  The  idea  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest,  the  conception  of  conditional  immortal- 
ity, and  the  progenitor  of  both  in  our  time,  the 
naturalistic  view  of  human  existence,  are  finally 
an  attack  upon  the  love  of  God.  As  they  thrive, 
faith  in  the  absoluteness  of  God  fades  away. 
They  are  steps  toward  the  last  and  deadliest 
peril  of  mankind,  the  enthronement  of  an  in- 
human interpretation  of  the  universe.  Under 
the  heavens  that  have  become  brass  lies  the 
earth  that  has  become  iron  ;  under  the  universe 
that  has  become  inhuman  is  a  humanity  in  re- 
version toward  brutehood. 

Man's  inhumanity  to  man  is  the  other  medium 
through  which  all  dangers  to  society,  ancient  and 
recent,  show  their  power.  Lust  and  lies  and  the 
unspeakable  custom  of  the  world's  shame,  the 
dishonor  of  home,  the  injustice  and  cruelty  that 
live  in  the  industrial  order,  the  snobbery  and 
foppery  of  social  life,  the  ghastly  smile  that  cov- 


HUMANITY  199 

ers  the  loveless  heart,  and  the  venomous  tongue 
that  delights  to  destroy  good  repute  and  peace, 
the  commercialism  that  would  convert  the  nation 
into  an  advertising  agent  of  its  wares,  the  pro- 
vincialism that  cares  nothing  for  man  as  man, 
the  poverty  that  is  unrelieved,  the  suffering  that 
is  unmitigated,  and  the  brutal  strength  that  is 
indifferent  to  the  cry  of  weakness,  —  all  are  mo- 
mentous and  awful  because  they  sum  up,  set 
forth,  and  put  into  action  man's  inhumanity  to 
man.  The  entire  inhuman  custom  of  life  is  to 
be  defied  in  the  name  of  the  integrity  and  hope 
of  mankind. 

in 

Among  the  permanent  guardians  of  humanity 
there  stands  first  man's  own  nature,  his  person- 
ality. The  admission  of  human  personality  is 
eventually  the  trumpet  of  doom  to  slavery,  serf- 
dom, and  caste.  Kant's  famous  dictum  that  per- 
sonality implies  that  man  is  an  end  to  himself, 
and  that  he  should  never  become  means  either 
to  another's  purposes  or  to  his  own  inclinations, 
is  an  availing  protest.  Use  things,  but  use  them 
wisely ;  use  animals,  but  use  them  kindly ;  use 
men  never ;  that  is  the  edict  from  the  throne 
of  moral  personality.  Under  the  historic  ex- 
pression of  moral  personality,  family  exclusive- 
ness,  social  snobbery,  governmental  injustice,  and 


200  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

religious  narrowness  have  slowly  yielded.  The 
increasing  pressure  of  manhood  has  been  avail- 
ing. The  wider  realization  of  personality  among 
the  masses  of  men  through  education  of  the  in- 
tellect and  the  will  is  already  effecting  enormous 
changes  in  the  social  order.  As  he  rises  in  intel- 
ligence and  character  man  must  continue  to  count 
for  more ;  and  as  society  is  affected  with  the  sense 
of  human  personality  its  consideration  for  the 
unfortunate  must  become  deeper  and  more  prac- 
tical. Social  groups  have  been  formed  upon 
social  distinctions  ;  and  so  long  as  these  are  not 
exclusive  they  are  legitimate  enough.  But  the 
admission  that  man  is  man,  the  increasing  con- 
sciousness of  personality  that  has  forced  this 
admission  calls  for  the  wider  recognition  of  what 
is  common  in  the  race.  When  moral  worth  is 
the  great  title  to  consideration,  and  the  capacity 
for  it  the  distinctive  mark  of  man,  a  force  is 
liberated  that  will  finally  inaugurate  the  reign 
of  human  brotherhood.  Meanwhile  practical 
Christianity  goes  about  building  up  moral  per- 
sonality. Ancient  tyrannies  would  have  been 
impossible  but  for  the  absence  of  manhood 
among  the  people.  When  Diogenes  said  that 
he  had  never  seen  a  man  he  uncovered  the 
whole  opportunity  of  secular  barbarity,  social 
exclusiveness,  political  injustice,  and  religious 
quackery.  Men's  ideas  of  the  race  will  be  very 


HUMANITY  201 

different  when  over  great  circles  of  population 
they  compel  respect  from  one  another.  A  whole 
world  of  bad  social  ethics,  and  worse  social  prac- 
tice, and  equally  reprehensible  theology,  would 
utterly  vanish,  if  suddenly  men  were  to  face  one 
another  in  the  fullness  and  strength  of  a  great 
moral  experience.  The  first  witness  that  the 
true  social  ultimate  is  mankind  is  the  worth  and 
inviolableness  of  human  personality. 

The  second  is  in  the  Christian  idea  of  steward- 
ship. The  legal  title  to  property  does  not  end 
the  discussion.  The  legal  right  must  rise  into 
a  moral  right ;  otherwise  it  would  seem  to  be 
increasingly  insecure.  It  is  not  difficult  to  fore- 
cast the  time  when  the  control  of  wealth  will 
be  conditioned  upon  the  beneficent  use  of  it. 
Society  will  not  always  grant  privileges  to  idlers 
and  rascals.  The  day  is  not  far  distant  when 
a  man  shall  be  compelled  to  justify  the  con- 
tinuance of  his  privileges  by  reference  to  the 
eminent  public  service  which  they  enable  him 
to  perform.  Wanton  wealthy  individualism  is 
drawing  toward  its  end.  No  reasonable  person 
will  grudge  a  Washington  or  a  Lincoln,  a  Glad- 
stone or  a  Bismarck,  his  privileges.  The  great 
servant  of  the  public  must  have  high  qualifica- 
tions ;  and  certain  privileges  are  essential  to  the 
development  and  maintenance  of  these  qualifica- 
tions. The  scholar  must  have  opportunity  and 


202  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

leisure.  The  higher  the  endowment  and  the 
more  eminent  the  service  to  be  rendered,  the 
larger  must  be  the  privilege.  The  distinction 
of  Christ  is  an  example.  His  privilege  in  intel- 
lect, in  feeling,  and  in  character,  in  what  the 
universe  meant  to  him,  in  what  he  got  out  of 
existence,  and  in  the  power  to  which  he  attained, 
was  just,  because  the  whole  distinction  of  his 
being  was  held  for  mankind.  The  social  prob- 
lem seems  to  me  to  be  less  over  the  possession 
by  the  few  of  large  fortunes,  and  much  more 
over  the  use  made  of  these  fortunes.  The  fun- 
damental contention  is  that  one  has  a  moral 
right,  a  human  right  to  wealth  only  in  so  far 
as  he  holds  it  for  the  public  good.  That  con- 
tention seems  to  me  to  be  ethically  undeniable. 
There  is  no  other  basis  in  Christian  morals  for 
the  inequalities  of  human  existence.  The  whole 
subject  comes  under  the  precept  of  the  apostle  : 
"  We  then  that  are  strong  ought  to  bear  the 
infirmities  of  the  weak,  and  not  to  please  our- 
selves." Strength  is  wholly  inhuman  unless  it 
is  under  the  moral  obligation  of  strength. 

A  true  theory  of  expansion  seems  to  be 
needed.  Expansion  itself  is  a  fact.  In  a  com- 
fortable home  the  ministry  of  the  race  is  repre- 
sented. More  and  more  business  tends  toward 
cosmopolitanism  ;  and  through  their  representa- 
tion at  foreign  courts  or  governments  the  civ- 


HUMANITY  203 

ilized  nations  of  the  earth  are  in  fellowship. 
Annies  and  navies  are  simply  the  national  and 
international  police,  a  good  thing  in  time  of 
peace,  indeed  a  pledge  of  its  continuance.  Edu- 
cation has  no  bounds  short  of  the  ends  of  the 
earth ;  religious  enterprise  undertakes  to  bring 
the  world  to  the  sense  of  God.  The  conception 
of  society  in  which  these  tendencies  are  at  work 
must  be  an  inclusive  one.  Ideally  at  least  any- 
thing less  than  universal  brotherhood  will  not 
do.  Private  interests  are  admitted  as  legitimate, 
but  they  must  be  adjusted  to  social  good.  In 
theory  and  in  practice  one  must  follow  the  sun. 
The  sun  is  at  the  centre  of  the  system  and  round 
it  in  the  narrowest  circle  and  the  most  intimate 
communion  is  Mercury.  Then  follow  in  ever 
widening  circles  Venus,  the  Earth,  Mars,  Jupiter, 
Saturn,  Uranus,  and  on  the  far  boundary,  a  veri- 
table solar  outcast  and  savage,  is  Neptune.  The 
duty  of  the  central  luminary  is  plain.  It  is  to 
shine  first  upon  those  that  are  nearest  to  it,  but 
not  upon  them  alone.  The  solar  volume  spreads 
over  all,  and  fills  the  outermost  circle  with  the 
same  tide  of  light  and  heat  with  which  it  kindles 
and  glorifies  the  innermost.  There  is  no  other 
social  ultimate  for  man.  Love  knows  no  bounds 
short  of  the  whole.  It  follows  first  upon  fami- 
lips,  but  it  does  not  stop  there.  It  rolls  through 
all  the  circles  of  human  afiiliation  ;  and  the 


204  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

force  that  rocks  the  cradle  in  which  the  mother 
has  laid  her  firstborn  is  the  power  that  carries 
the  infant  races  into  civilized  manhood.  The 
issue  of  science  in  her  nineteenth  century  free- 
dom has  been  the  discrimination  of  the  human 
races  from  all  other  forms  of  life  upon  this 
planet.  Evolution  is  but  the  imperfect  record 
of  the  amazing  self-differentiation  of  man  from 
the  lower  orders  of  existence.  Christian  theo- 
logy comes  in  to  hold  the  achievements  of 
science.  The  one  distinct  race  has  with  it  as  a 
whole  and  forever  the  one  true  and  living  God. 
And  the  social  ideal  is  bound  to  equal  the  scien- 
tific and  the  theological.  Man  must  side  with 
man  here  and  everywhere,  now  and  forever. 

Exclusive  moods  are  inevitable,  and  they  are 
justifiable  in  their  use.  There  are  times  when 
the  best  man  will  wish  to  be  alone,  when  the 
thought  of  the  endless  multitudes  of  human  be- 
ings who  have  lived  upon  the  earth  or  who  to- 
day live  upon  it,  or  who  will  inhabit  it,  is  posi- 
tively oppressive.  The  solitary  mood  has  many 
noble  uses,  no  one  of  which,  however,  is  now  to 
be  mentioned.  The  mood  goes  too  far  when  it 
longs  for  a  sparsely  populated  kingdom  of  God 
either  in  this  world  or  the  next.  And  it  may 
serve  to  rid  one  of  this  exclusive  mood  to  recall 
the  fact  that  the  greatest  debt  of  the  individual 
man  is  to  his  race.  The  science,  the  art,  the 


HUMANITY  205 

philosophy,  the  faith,  the  whole  higher  civiliza- 
tion of  the  world,  is  an  achievement  of  the  human 
race.  It  represents  what  man  has  done  for 
men.  Genius  is  the  highest  expression  of  the 
forces  that  vitalize  it,  that  supply  it  with  its 
whole  content,  and  that  have  their  home  in  the 
heart  of  mankind.  And  as  it  was  not  matter  of 
regret  but  of  gladness  to  Wellington  and  his 
hard-pressed  soldiers  at  Waterloo  when  the  sixty 
thousand  Prussians  under  Bliicher  were  seen  in 
the  distance  ;  as  it  was  not  an  occasion  of  grief 
but  of  congratulation  to  the  loyal  American  in 
the  civil  war  when  the  response  rang  out  to 
the  call  of  the  President,  "  We  are  coming,  Fa- 
ther Abraham,  three  hundred  thousand  strong ; " 
so  when  it  is  seen  that  the  normal  man  owes  the 
fullness  and  security  of  his  spiritual  possessions 
to  the  race,  numbers  will  then  mean,  not  sources 
of  oppression,  but  of  freedom  and  power. 

Human  personality,  the  obligation  of  the 
strong  to  the  weak,  and  the  universal  reference 
and  logic  of  every  truly  Christian  life  are  the 
great  forces  that  have  broken  down  the  social 
exclusiveness  of  Christendom.  The  religion  of 
Christ  is  an  ethical  religion ;  and  its  central 
word  is  reconciliation.  It  shows  the  world  the 
sublime  moral  personality  of  Jesus  operating 
upon  the  moral  personality  of  men,  bringing 
them  into  a  new  and  inclusive  social  whole,  and 


206  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

putting  that  social  whole  into  the  deepest  com- 
munion with  God.  And  it  is  the  influence  of 
Christ  that  has  brought  the  world  to  the  posi- 
tion where  every  true  man  must  be  cosmopoli- 
tan. The  ultimate  conception  for  the  individual 
life  —  moral  personality  —  under  Christianity 
has  completed  itself  in  mankind  as  the  social 
ultimate.  The  terms  that  admit  one  admit  all. 
The  recognition  of  the  human  element  in  any 
man  means  the  final  recognition  of  it  in  the 
entire  race.  Social  order  is  slowly  leaving  feud- 
alism behind  it.  The  time  is  coming  when  the 
badges  of  social  exclusiveness  will  undergo  the 
change  that  long  ago  overtook  the  signs  of 
the  Scottish  clans.  Like  the  tartans  they  will 
remain  interesting  emblems  of  a  social  condition 
that  has  gone,  picturesque  memorials  of  divi- 
sion cherished  by  the  generous  soul  of  human 
brotherhood. 

The  supreme  guardian  of  the  humanity  of  the 
race  is  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  pushes 
into  prominence  the  personal  soul  of  the  indi- 
vidual man,  it  accentuates  the  worth  and  the 
possibility  of  worth  that  is  present  in  every  hu- 
man being.  The  single  parable  of  Dives  and 
Lazarus  has  in  it  elemental  force  as  a  witness 
to  human  personality.  The  beggar  who  is  yet 
a  moral  value  for  the  unseen  world,  and  the  rich 
man  who  is  a  moral  offense  for  that  same  world, 


HUMANITY  207 

show  the  supreme  emphasis  that  Christ  put  upon 
the  soul.  His  teaching  renders  legible  the  con- 
stitution written  by  the  finger  of  God  upon  the 
heart.  The  invisible  characters  leap  into  light 
under  his  speech,  and  man  is  able  to  read  his 
own  name.  And  in  and  through  the  teaching, 
there  is  in  the  Gospel  a  spirit  that  leads  men 
into  a  new  world  of  moral  experience.  Con- 
science counts  for  more  and  more  until  it  counts 
for  everything.  The  struggle  under  the  ideal, 
and  in  its  behalf,  becomes  the  normal  human 
life ;  temptation  is  the  constant  element  of  exist- 
ence, and  temptation  overcome  is  life's  increas- 
ing achievement.  Moral  achievement  in  the 
heart  of  grave  difficulty  is  the  law  of  the  spirit 
of  life  in  Christ  Jesus.  Thus  the  human  per- 
sonality that  is  brought  to  light  through  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  is  attested  through  the  world 
of  moral  struggle  and  victory  into  which  he 
leads  men. 

That  the  strong  should  help  the  weak  is  the 
obligation  of  the  human  conscience.  That  ob- 
ligation is  developed  under  Christianity  with 
peculiar  power.  The  struggle  for  life  that  one 
finds  in  the  cosmos  is  apt  to  be  reproduced  in 
society  as  a  natural  law,  and  man  is  thus  de- 
graded to  the  level  of  nature.  The  supreme 
protest  against  the  doctrine  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest  comes  from  the  Gospel.  When  self- 


208  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

seeking  looks  downward  for  the  justification  of 
its  hardness  of  heart,  conscience  looks  toward 
the  cross  of  Christ  for  the  more  excellent  way. 
The  struggle  for  the  life  of  others,  which  Pro- 
fessor Drummond  was  among  the  first  to  em- 
phasize as  a  fact  in  cosmic  existence,  receives  its 
highest  expression  in  the  death  of  Jesus.  He 
died  because  it  was  his  duty  to  die.  He  was  set 
for  the  defense  of  the  weak,  and  to  make  that 
defense  availing  he  must  himself  lay  down  his 
life.  He  was  the  divine  struggler  for  the  life  of 
others,  and  to  carry  that  struggle  into  an  assur- 
ance of  victory,  he  must  pass  through  death. 
The  cross  of  Christ  is  the  symbol  of  love  as  the 
final  law  of  life.  It  is  the  great  antagonist  of 
the  rule  of  conduct  borrowed  from  the  animal 
world.  Against  the  ethics  deduced  from  the 
survival  of  the  fittest  there  stands  the  ethics  of 
the  cross. 

Time  and  space  count  for  all  that  they  are 
worth  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus ;  neighborhood 
is  never  emptied  of  its  meaning  by  him.  Still 
there  are  no  boundaries  for  him  that  do  not 
encompass  all  human  beings.  Foreign  missions 
are  still  in  their  crude  state ;  yet  are  they  an 
essential  expression  of  Christianity.  The  unity 
of  love  in  the  Godhead  is  to  be  reproduced  in 
hiunan  society.  Except  the  Lord  build  the 
house  they  labor  in  vain  that  build  it;  except 


HUMANITY  209 

the  Lord  keep  the  city  the  watchman  waketh 
in  vain.  In  establishing  the  race  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  its  own  unity  and  in  conforming 
behavior  to  this  consciousness  we  look  to  the 
Master.  He  has  seen  the  divine  meaning  of 
life ;  his  spirit  is  the  spirit  of  revelation  and 
realization.  The  highest  human  interests  are 
under  his  protection ;  and  when  one  thinks  of 
the  forces  that  threaten  the  humanity  of  man, 
one  must  make  a  new  application  of  the  Hebrew 
song:  — 

"  The  Lord  is  thy  keeper : 
The  Lord  is  thy  shade  upon  thy  right  hand. 
The  sun  shall  not  smite  thee  by  day, 
Nor  the  moon  by  night. 
The  Lord  shall  keep  thee  from  all  evil ; 
He  shall  keep  thy  soul. 

The  Lord  shall  keep  thy  going  out  and  thy  coming  in, 
From  this  time  forth  and  for  evermore."  1 

Two  fundamental  articles  of  faith  for  the 
modern  believer  have  now  been  won.  He  can- 
not consider  himself  poor  who  is  able  to  make 
this  beginning.  To  be  sure  of  man  as  a  citizen 
of  a  moral  commonwealth,  and  to  include  in  that 
commonwealth  all  the  races  that  go  to  make  up 
mankind  is  a  good  foundation.  The  possibilities 
of  a  great  message  and  a  joyful  service  begin  to 
dawn  upon  the  believer.  He  has  not  yet  found 
all  that  he  needs ;  he  may  never  be  able  to  do 

1  Psalm  cxxi.  5-& 


210  THE  SOCIAL   ULTIMATE 

that.  But  in  finding  himself  and  his  brother 
he  has  started  upon  discoveries  which  will  put 
him  in  the  best  kind  of  apostolical  succession. 
He  has  had  his  first  bout  in  his  great  fight  for 
faith ;  he  has  struck  for  simple  human  things 
and  he  has  won.  And  as  the  social  ultimate 
was  given  in  the  individual  ultimate,  as  the  pos- 
sible worth  for  righteousness  of  all  men  was 
involved  in  the  possible  worth  of  one  man,  as 
the  second  was  drawn  out  of  the  first  like  one 
section  of  a  telescope  out  of  another,  there  is 
hope  that  the  logical  evolution  may  go  on. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE   HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE:   OPTIMISM 


VARIOUS  opinions  are  possible  concerning  the 
character  and  drift  of  human  history.  Pessi- 
mism may  be  the  final  word  for  it.  It  may  be 
held  that  human  affairs  began  in  a  bad  way, 
that  they  have  been  steadily  going  from  bad  to 
worse,  and  that  the  goal  can  be  nothing  but  uni- 
versal and  absolute  disaster.  It  has,  in  fact, 
been  preached  with  unquestionable  sincerity  and 
power  that  existence  is  a  disease,  that  conscious 
being  is  inevitable  misery,  that  the  denial  of  the 
will  to  live  is  the  only  salvation,  and  that  the 
last  and  supreme  consolation  lies  in  the  assur- 
ance, — 

"  This  little  life  is  all  thou  must  endure, 
The  grave's  most  holy  peace  is  ever  sure." 

On  this  view,  history  is  a  colossal  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah ;  the  foul  egoism  breeds  ever  vaster 
woe  and  despair ;  and  the  fire  and  brimstone 
that  wiped  out  the  cities  of  the  plain  are  to  be 
regarded  as  angels  of  mercy  and  types  of  the 
final  whirlwinds  that  shall  roll  all  human  wretch- 


212  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

edness  into  the  peace  of  extinction.  According 
to  this  view,  death  is  the  redeemer  of  mankind. 
The  opposite  of  this  opinion  may  be  enter- 
tained. It  may  be  held  that  human  beings  are 
slowly  moving  from  bad  conditions  into  better, 
and  that  an  irresistible  impulse  is  pushing  the 
race  onward  from  one  improvement  to  another 
and  a  higher,  and  that  it  is  not  difficult  to  fore- 
cast the  time  when  man  shall  attain  a  new 
character  in  the  heart  of  a  nobler  social  envi- 
ronment. History,  according  to  this  view,  is  a 
drama  that  is  to  be  judged  by  its  issues  ;  it  is  a 
picture  upon  which  the  supreme  artist  is  work- 
ing, whose  merits  must  not  be  inferred  from  the 
first  sketch,  or  from  its  appearance  at  any  given 
stage  of  advance,  but  from  the  ideal  whose  light 
increasingly  shines  in  it,  and  which  shall  yet  con- 
form the  great  canvas  to  its  own  divine  character. 
According  to  this  view,  life  conquers  all  sorrow ; 
the  law  of  improvement  and  increase  is  written 
on  its  heart ;  no  weapon  formed  against  it  can 
prosper ;  and  human  history  is  moving  toward 
final  triumph.  Because  of  the  end  upon  which 
the  race  is  moving,  optimism  is  applied  to  his- 
tory; because  of  the  contribution  which  all 
worthy  persons  make  toward  the  last  great  con- 
quest, it  is  held  that  life,  even  under  conditions 
of  hardship  and  suffering,  is  an  unexpressible 
boon. 


OPTIMISM  213 

Hypothetical  optimism  may  be  the  view  taken 
of  the  historical  situation.  The  human  world 
seems  to  certain  thinkers  to  be  originally  inde- 
terminate, but  convertible  by  human  choice  and 
endeavor  into  either  best  or  worst.  "  Behold, 
I  set  before  you  this  day  a  blessing  and  a 
curse."  l  The  human  being  is  born  equidistant 
from  optimism  and  pessimism.  God  has  made 
the  dual  possibilities  of  existence  ;  to  man  he 
has  left  it  to  unify  this  dualism  in  either  an 
earthly  inferno  or  paradise.  This  appears  to  be 
the  view  taken  by  Professor  William  James  in 
his  impressive  book,  "  The  Will  to  Believe." 
The  actual  course  of  our  human  world  is  un- 
predictable ;  all  that  can  be  said  of  it  is  that 
the  indeterminate  may  be  wrought  over  into 
worst  or  best.  Possible  optimism  is  the  phrase 
that  covers  the  case,  —  an  optimism  which  must 
be  taken  out  of  the  clouds  of  a  hostile  cosmos 
and  a  brutal  society  by  the  high  choice  and  the 
heroic  endeavor  of  man.  According  to  this 
view,  man  is  his  own  saviour. 

To  many  persons  the  question  of  optimism 
concerns  only  the  inward  life.  It  is  only  inci- 
dentally related  to  environment,  cosmic  or  social. 
The  life  of  Dives  is  a  pessimism  in  spite  of  a 
royal  environment ;  the  life  of  Lazarus  is  an 
optimism,  notwithstanding  want  and  suffering. 

1  Deuteronomy  xi.  26. 


214  TUE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

In  this  view  there  can  be  no  generalization 
touching  the  historical  career  of  man.  Condi- 
tion counts  for  nothing ;  character  counts  for 
everything ;  and  character  is  wholly  an  individ- 
ual achievement.  The  dying  Christ  prays  :  "  Fa- 
ther, forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they 
do ; "  and  his  first  great  witness  speaks  for  the 
entire  community  of  the  brave  and  wise  when  he 
cries  in  behalf  of  those  who  are  stoning  him  to 
death :  "  Lord,  lay  not  this  sin  to  their  charge." 
The  question  of  the  success  or  defeat  of  life 
belongs  wholly  in  the  sphere  of  the  spirit ;  and 
its  concern  is  entirely  with  the  individual  soul. 
This  mood  answers  the  question  of  historic 
optimism  or  pessimism  with  another  question  : 
Wilt  thou  be  a  Dives  or  a  Lazarus,  a  Stephen 
or  a  shedder  of  innocent  blood  ? 

Such  are  some  of  the  varieties  of  opinion  pos- 
sible upon  this  grave  subject.  Risk  is  plainly 
involved  in  making  a  selection.  Like  the  Dutch 
humorist  who  chose  the  twelve  apostles  for  his 
jury,  and  announced  his  willingness  to  wait  for 
the  adjudication  of  his  case  until  they  arrived, 
one  must  be  prepared  to  admit  that  whichever 
selection  one  may  make  of  opinions  bearing  upon 
the  ultimate  issues  of  history,  there  can  be  no 
demonstration  of  its  truth  this  side  of  the  day  of 
judgment.  Still  opinions  of  one  stamp  or  an- 
other are  inevitable  ;  and  in  regard  to  human 


OPTIMISM  215 

history,  the  field  is  logically  divided  between 
optimism  and  pessimism.  Neither  mood  may 
be  dogmatic;  either  may  stand  for  an  incom- 
pletely attested  idea ;  each  may  signify  simply 
an  attitude  of  mind  toward  the  career  of  man 
upon  the  earth,  —  an  attitude  of  happy  or  of 
unhappy  expectation.  Optimism  and  pessimism 
are  ultimately  the  result  of  contrasted  judgments 
upon  the  historical  situation.  After  the  fall 
of  Vicksburg  and  the  battle  of  Gettysburg, 
General  Grant  said  he  was  sure  that  the  rebel- 
lion was  doomed,  that  the  United  States  was 
safe.  Many  agreed  with  the  general  in  this 
judgment ;  more  perhaps  disagreed.  After  these 
victories  of  the  Union  armies,  Grant  was  an 
optimist  upon  the  national  situation ;  looking 
upon  the  same  situation,  there  were  eminent 
men  who  had  the  gravest  fears.  Unquestion- 
ably the  fact  that  Grant  was  a  mighty  fighter 
for  union  tended  to  inspire  and  sustain  his 
optimism ;  while  the  pessimism  of  the  mere 
military  critic  was  doubtless  increased  by  his 
inactivity.  This  example  shows  that  there  was 
a  time  when  an  intelligent  judgment  upon  the 
issue  of  the  conflict  was  impossible.  That  con- 
dition of  suspense,  however,  could  not  last ;  things 
must  move  toward  a  crisis,  and  the  movement 
must  be  an  inspiration  either  to  final  hope  or 
fear.  The  parallel  to  this  national  instance  is 


216  THE  HISTORICAL  ULTIMATE 

man  in  his  historic  situation.  There  may  have 
been  periods  when  no  reasonable  man  could  ven- 
ture an  opinion  upon  the  ultimate  tendencies 
and  issues  of  history.  Upon  this  subject  there 
have  been  in  all  periods  agnostics ;  and  it  would 
be  rash  to  deny  that  upon  the  final  issues  of 
man's  career  on  the  earth,  the  agnostic  has  no- 
thing to  say  for  himself.  Still  suspense  of 
judgment  is,  for  any  considerable  time,  and 
upon  an  intensely  human  question,  a  very  pain- 
ful and  a  nearly  impossible  condition.  The 
agnostic  is  almost  sure  to  eventuate  in  optimism 
or  pessimism.  According  as  history  is  believed 
to  be  making  for  human  progress  or  against  it 
will  be  the  mood  of  hope  or  of  horror.  Thus 
optimism  and  pessimism  are  of  the  nature  of 
prophecy.  Over  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ 
Herod  was  troubled  and  all  Jerusalem  with  him. 
Over  the  same  event  the  wise  men  rejoiced  with 
exceeding  great  joy.  Each  class  had  an  ulti- 
mate characterization  of  the  event  incompletely 
attested ;  each  did  their  utmost  for  their  con- 
ception, and  then  awaited  the  confirmation  or 
confutation  of  the  future.  Upon  the  whole, 
men  must  characterize  history  as  working  for 
good  or  evil ;  their  ideas  they  must  support  with 
their  strength ;  and  for  the  supreme  judgment 
upon  their  quarrel  they  must  appeal  to  the  end. 
In  claiming  that  optimism  is  the  valid  mood 


OPTIMISM  217 

in  which  to  view  the  historic  process,  it  must 
be  clearly  understood  that  the  movement  toward 
the  best  is  ever  in  and  through  human  choice 
and  endeavor.  The  historic  process  may  even- 
tuate in  ideal  character  and  conditions  and  yet 
be  in  itself  an  agony  and  a  bloody  sweat.  The 
career  of  Jesus  ends  in  resurrection  from  the 
dead  ;  but  the  path  to  that  bright  goal  was  dark 
enough  surely.  History  may  be  held  to  be  a 
process  of  moral  illumination,  and  yet  the  pass- 
ing away  of  ignorance  may  involve  inexpressible 
human  effort.  History  may  mean  the  final  con- 
quest of  unrighteousness,  and  still  there  may  be 
room  for  the  severest  action  of  retributive  law. 
There  is  no  deliverance  for  man  except  with  the 
consent  and  cooperation  of  man.  The  gifts  of 
God  are  always,  in  the  moral  world,  the  achieve- 
ments of  man.  Flowery  beds  of  ease  never 
have  carried  any  one  to  the  skies,  and  they 
never  will.  The  judicial  process  is  in  the  heart 
of  human  life.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  it  is 
the  deepest  ground  of  hope  for  man.  The  fact 
that  egoism  is  filled  with  the  sense  of  its  own 
horror  and  covered  with  the  frown  of  the  uni- 
verse is  the  profoundest  source  of  thanksgiving 
and  high  expectation.  Here  the  judicial  process 
is  noted,  not  as  inconsistent  with,  but  as  abso- 
lutely essential  to  optimism.  The  exaction  of 
the  utmost  farthing  is  but  the  severe  kindness, 


218  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

the  austere  benignity,  of  the  moral  order.  In 
upon  light  and  love  and  the  noble  mastery  of 
nature  men  are  led  and  men  are  driven.  This 
double  inducement  from  high  possession  and 
from  wretched  privation  is  presented  and  wielded 
by  honest  and  all-competent  hands.  In  the  doc- 
trine of  hope  there  is  room  for  every  aspect  of 
the  treatment  which  man  in  his  ignorance  and 
egoism,  in  his  savage  disregard  of  duty,  and  in 
his  cultivated  evasion  of  moral  obligation,  re- 
ceives at  the  hand  of  his  world  environment. 

II 

Optimism  and  pessimism  are  of  supreme  mo- 
ment to  the  preacher  of  righteousness.  So  far 
as  these  ideas  are  serious  they  are  in  life,  and 
the  preacher  confesses  at  once  the  great  primacy 
of  life.  Opinions  that  concern  the  happiness  or 
the  misery  of  mankind  may  be  mere  philoso- 
phies, idle  theories  to  others,  but  for  him  they 
are  of  vital  interest.  For  the  preacher,  opti- 
mism is  the  sunshine  in  which  lie  all  the  cheerful 
ways  of  men,  the  light  in  which  his  own  work 
goes  bravely  forward.  For  him  pessimism  is 
the  great  negation  of  his  message,  the  black 
contradiction  in  the  face  of  which  he  sadly  tries 
to  rescue  the  perishing.  Confidence  in  his  mes- 
sage must  turn  the  preacher  into  an  optimist  of 
one  degree  or  another ;  while  the  settled  sense 


OPTIMISM  219 

of  final  failure  must  end  in  breaking  down  his 
confidence  altogether. 

The  world  is  a  scene  of  moral  conflict.  Right 
and  wrong,  truth  and  falsehood  meet  in  a  life 
and  death  struggle.  The  use  and  the  abuse  of 
existence  is  the  vast  and  mixed  phenomenon. 
Confronting  the  lover  and  his  sovereign  rever- 
ence is  the  brutal  man  whose  existence  is  "  an 
expense  of  being  in  a  waste  of  shame."  Over 
against  each  other  in  battle  array  stand  light 
and  darkness,  the  world  as  a  secular  organiza- 
tion and  the  same  world  as  a  divine  institute, 
Christ  and  Belial,  the  brute  in  man  and  the  man 
in  association  with  the  brute.  The  war  is  on  ; 
it  is  as  if  one  were  to  ask,  Is  it  Sparta  or 
Athens  that  is  to  gain,  Carthage  or  Rome,  the 
old  empire  or  the  new  prophetic  nations  that 
swarm  in  upon  it,  French  or  British  in  America 
and  in  Europe,  Dutch  or  British  in  the  control 
of  seas  and  continents,  the  United  States  as 
slaveholder  or  as  the  greatest  witness  in  history 
for  freedom?  What  is  the  relation  of  power 
to  misery  in  this  world?  Is  it  that  of  Dives  to 
Lazarus,  simple  and  brutal  indifference  ?  And 
are  we  to  look  for  anarchy  and  revolution,  strife 
and  bloodshed,  crisis  and  calamity  as  the  issue 
of  this  attitude  of  power  to  suffering  ?  Or  must 
we  seek  the  parallel  in  Christ  and  his  compas- 
sionate response  to  blind  Bartimeus  ?  The  tu- 


220  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

mult  is  there.  The  voices  are  there  that  would 
silence  the  appeal  of  distress.  Those  voices  re- 
mind one  of  the  world.  But  the  Master  is  there, 
the  appeal  finds  its  way  through  all  the  tumult  to 
his  soul,  and  the  supreme  man  becomes  the  de- 
liverer of  his  brother.  Is  there  a  Christ  in  his- 
tory, a  Christ  in  humanity  ?  Do  the  appeal  of 
the  weak  and  the  response  of  the  strong  meet  in 
the  soul  of  man,  and  with  high  and  serious  hope? 
Individual  men  must  always  be  one  great  aim 
of  the  preacher.  The  question  rises,  however, 
is  it  possible  to  save  a  soul  without  thereby 
doing  much  toward  saving  a  family,  a  business 
community,  a  social  fellowship,  a  nation,  a  race  ? 
Is  not  the  individual  set  into  the  social  organ- 
ism as  the  single  tooth  is  into  the  head  ?  Is  it 
possible  to  extract  the  individual  from  society 
and  yet  retain  his  worth  ?  Social  hope  is  always 
the  best  sign  of  individual  renewal.  Bunyan's 
Pilgrim  is  true  to  Puritanism ;  but  Puritanism, 
under  one  aspect,  is  an  overdone  individualism. 
Christiana  is  truer  far  to  the  spiritual  life  than 
Christian  because  she  takes  her  children  with  her. 
Here  the  maternal  instinct  controlled  the  great 
Puritan  ;  and  the  maternal  instinct  is  representa- 
tive of  the  love  that  can  accept  nothing  short  of 
social  regeneration.  The  Pharisee  turned  apostle 
cannot  abandon  his  race.  He  bears  toward  them, 
in  the  face  of  persistent  persecution,  a  great 


OPTIMISM  221 

zeal ;  for  his  brethren's  sake  he  could  even  wish 
himself  accursed.  In  the  constitution  of  social 
man  Rachel  still  weeps  for  her  children,  refus- 
ing to  be  comforted  because  they  are  not.  The 
beautiful  mother  of  Israel  even  in  the  realm  of 
peace  sits  in  eternal  sorrow  over  this  dispersion 
and  dishonor  of  her  far-off  descendants.  Thus 
does  Jeremiah  bind  into  a  common  destiny  the 
individual  and  the  race.  "  O  Absalom,  my  son ! " 
That  is  the  language  of  human  love  in  all  ages. 
"  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem !  "  That  exclamation 
is  eternally  valid  as  an  expression  of  the  grief 
of  Christ  over  social  disaster. 

In  order,  therefore,  to  be  able  to  save  souls 
one  must  believe  in  the  possibility  of  saving 
families,  societies,  nations,  the  human  race.  It  is 
indeed  impossible  to  define  the  individual  other- 
wise than  as  implicated  in  the  largest  way  with 
society.  Some  one  has  defined  the  United 
States  as  bounded  on  the  north  by  the  Aurora 
Borealis,  on  the  south  by  the  Southern  Cross, 
on  the  east  by  the  primeval  chaos,  and  on  the 
west  by  the  day  of  judgment.  And  in  the  same 
way  in  defining  the  individual  man  the  universe 
must  be  taken  into  account.  Considerations  of 
this  nature  make  it  plain  that  in  the  profoundest 
sense  individual  and  social  salvation  are  nearly 
identical.  One  of  the  first  questions  which  the 
Japanese  ask  the  missionary  concerning  the 


222  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

world  of  moral  beatitude  beyond  death,  is 
whether  it  is  open  to  their  ancestors.  The  ques- 
tion is  an  overwhelming  one  to  those  who  pro- 
vide only  for  the  appeal  to  the  living  individual, 
and  who  have  no  Gospel  for  mankind. 

The  preacher  is  thus  turned  back  to  Hebraism 
and  its  magnificent  social  faith.  Isaiah,  Jere- 
miah, the  great  prophet  of  the  exile,  and  indeed 
in  a  way  the  entire  prophetic  chorus,  preach 
national  regeneration.  It  may  be  said  of  them 
all,  including  John  the  Baptist,  that  social  re- 
generation was  their  message,  and  that  racial 
redemption  was  their  hope.  In  the  writings 
of  these  illustrious  men  appears  the  first  rude 
sketch  of  a  moral  philosophy  of  man's  career  on 
the  earth.  Back  to  this  Hebrew  message  for 
the  nation,  and  to  this  open  fountain  of  social 
optimism  the  preacher  must  go.  Here  in  the 
ancient  Scriptures  which  he  reveres  is  the  first 
great  corrective  of  an  overdone  individualism, 
the  earliest  light  of  historic  hope. 

The  sane  and  sovereign  strength  of  Christ  no- 
where appears  more  striking  than  at  this  point. 
His  kingdom  is  a  society  of  individuals,  and  of 
individuals  in  society.  He  works  upon  men  as 
individuals ;  but  that  work  is  to  call  them  out 
of  evil  social  relations  into  a  new  fellowship 
with  one  another,  and  with  himself  and  his 
Father.  He  has  no  hope  for  society  except 


OPTIMISM  223 

through  the  leavening  power  of  individual  souls  ; 
and  he  has  no  hope  for  individual  souls  except 
as  inspired  and  sustained  by  a  new  social  order. 
And  out  of  this  interdependence  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  society  comes  his  optimism.  The 
new  individual  in  the  new  society  is  matched 
against  the  old  individual  in  the  old  society. 
Concerning  this  contest  the  familiar  words  take 
on  the  profoundest  meaning :  The  meek  shall 
inherit  the  earth.  He  shall  not  cry  nor  lift  up 
his  voice  in  the  streets ;  the  bruised  reed  shall 
he  not  break,  the  smoking  flax  shall  he  not 
quench  till  he  send  forth  truth  unto  victory. 
Heaven  and  earth  may  pass  away,  but  my  words 
shall  not  pass  away.  I  beheld  Satan  fall  as 
lightning  from  heaven.  Fear  not,  little  flock, 
it  is  your  Father's  good  pleasure  to  give  you 
the  kingdom. 

Regeneration  of  the  individual  was  the  su- 
preme interest  of  the  great  preachers  of  the 
past.  What  did  this  interest  mean  ?  It  meant 
the  call  to  the  individual  man  to  live  under  the 
sovereignty  of  conscience,  as  conscience  is  trans- 
figured and  upheld  in  authority  by  the  Spirit  of 
God.  Regeneration  meant  the  victorious  asser- 
tion in  the  name  of  Christ,  and  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  of  manhood  against  brutehood.  Regen- 
eration is  still  the  chief  interest  of  the  preacher ; 
but  its  meaning  must  be  extended.  Nothing  but 


224  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

the  vision  of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  wherein 
dwelleth  righteousness  can  satisfy  the  prophetic 
soul  to-day.  Every  individual  convert  is  another 
pledge  of  the  coming  conversion  of  society.  The 
new  society,  whether  it  is  called  the  church  or 
the  kingdom,  must  be  of  utmost  concern  to  the 
preacher.  By  the  social  power  of  love  he  seeks 
to  break  down  the  social  power  of  wickedness, 
by  the  fellowship  of  men  in  light  he  tries  to 
overthrow  the  solidarity  of  men  in  darkness. 

Without  faith  in  the  invincibility  of  social 
righteousness  it  is  impossible  to  be  a  preacher. 
The  preacher  is  born  in  moral  tumult  and  vic- 
tory. His  education  repeats  in  his  heart  the 
temptation  and  the  triumph  of  Jesus.  His  ex- 
perience has  filled  him  with  the  assurance  that 
human  life  is  amenable  to  moral  ideas,  that  as 
the  tides  go  by  the  silent  force  of  unseen  worlds, 
so  the  deeps  in  man  are  ruled  out  of  ideal  heights. 
Moral  discovery,  moral  achievement,  and  moral 
hope  make  the  preacher;  and  out  of  this  dis- 
covery, achievement,  and  hope  come  his  ideal- 
ism, his  plan  for  the  world,  and  his  confidence 
in  its  power  of  self-realization.  The  Hebrew 
prophets  and  the  Christian  apostles  found  their 
message  through  their  conscience.  The  moral 
view  of  life  and  the  universe  was  supreme  and 
absolute.  That  view  had  taken  possession  of 
them ;  it  had  rung  out  a  jubilee  from  the  con- 


OPTIMISM  225 

cert  of  powers  which  it  had  discovered  within 
them,  and  it  claimed  through  them  the  whole 
world  as  its  own.  Optimism  is  thus  the  product 
of  the  moralist ;  it  is  the  discovery  of  the  men 
who  have  gone  deepest  into  the  ethical  order  of 
the  world.  It  began  in  the  tremendous  ethical 
passion  of  the  Hebrew  prophet ;  it  owes  its  origin 
to  the  preacher  who  met  iniquity  not  with  com- 
promise and  fear,  but  with  heroic  and  consuming 
hostility.  And  as  thus  it  began  only  thus  can  it 
be  maintained.  The  victorious  fighter  for  ideal 
ends  is  ever  the  only  genuine  apostle  of  opti- 
mism. Other  men  may  play  with  the  vocabu- 
lary of  hope ;  on  his  words  alone  who  is  pushing 
his  personal  life  into  moral  triumph  is  the  accent 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  man  who  is  without 
reasonable  hope  for  himself  cannot  hold  a  gos- 
pel of  hope  for  his  fellowmen ;  and  he  who  is  a 
sound  moral  optimist  for  himself,  unless  he  is  a 
Pharisee,  cannot  be  other  than  an  optimist  with 
reference  to  mankind. 

in 

Some  account  must  now  be  taken  of  the  chief 
difficulties  that  beset  an  optimistic  view  of  hu- 
man history.  The  conception  of  a  golden  age  to 
which  the  Jew  and  the  Christian  and  the  evolu- 
tionist look  forward  may  be  an  illusion.  In  this 
case  the  sincerest  optimist  may  now  and  then  feel 


226  T11E  HISTORICAL  ULTIMATE 

"  My  dreams  are  bat  the  shadows  of  my  hopes." 

And  yet  the  persistence  of  these  hopes  is  in  their 
favor.  A  soap  bubble  may  float  about  among 
solid  substances,  and  in  a  miraculous  way  sur- 
vive ;  and  yet  that  survival  cannot  be  long. 
Either  from  expansion  or  collision  it  must  soon 
perish.  The  aeonian  survival  of  the  hope  of  an 
immeasurably  better  future  for  mankind  on  the 
earth  would  seem  to  prove  that  the  hope  is  not 
a  mere  dream,  and  that  it  is  not  wholly  contra- 
dicted by  the  stern  environment  in  which  men 
live.  Such  a  golden  age  as  has  fired  the  imagi- 
nation of  Hebrew  seer,  Christian  apostle,  French 
encyclopaedist,  and  revolutionary  scientist  would 
appear  to  be  among  the  possibilities  of  the  future. 
It  is  something  that  may  be  true  to  the  intention 
and  ultimate  achievement  of  history. 

But  if  possible,  it  is  mainly  for  those  who  have 
done  nothing  to  bring  it  to  pass.  The  founders 
of  the  United  States  had  mostly  labor  and  sor- 
row for  their  wages.  The  nobler  freedom  for 
which  they  fought  and  died  was  not  for  them- 
selves but  for  their  descendants.  In  the  career 
of  those  who  from  1861-65  redeemed  the  na- 
tion from  its  division  and  dishonor  the  same 
principle  appears.  Their  achievement  was  not 
for  themselves  but  for  their  posterity.  It  is  ad- 
mitted freely  by  candid  scholars  that  the  brief 
rule  of  Oliver  Cromwell  has  permanently  in- 


OPTIMISM  227 

fluenced  for  good  the  course  of  English  history. 
English  freedom  has  been  a  nobler  thing  since 
the  days  of  the  great  Protector  and  more  secure. 
The  joy  of  this  vast  contribution  to  national  well- 
being  was  hardly  for  the  author  of  it ;  it  was 
mainly  for  after  ages.  Luther's  achievement  is 
of  great  and  permanent  significance.  Freedom 
of  opinion  is  more  indebted  to  him,  perhaps,  than 
to  any  other  modern  man.  To  him,  for  indis- 
pensable conditions  of  life,  science  is  under  ever- 
lasting obligations.  For  this  inestimable  service 
his  reward  was  largely  suffering.  He  inaugu- 
rated a  new  epoch,  and  left  to  other  generations 
the  joy  of  it.  In  the  New  Testament  this  fact 
is  presented  with  surpassing  impressiveness.  In 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  the  heroism  of  the 
old  dispensation  is  recalled,  the  faith  and  suffer- 
ing which  wrought  for  better  things  are  recited, 
the  idealism  and  the  bitter  disappointment  and 
disaster  of  that  whole  high  ancient  world  are 
noted,  and  the  conclusion  is  that  the  vision  alone 
was  for  the  Hebrew,  the  fruition  for  the  Chris- 
tian. When  Lord  Roberts  reviews  his  troops  in 
London  after  the  conquest  of  South  Africa,  his 
gallant  son  is  not  there ;  and  many  who  did  most 
to  bring  about  the  result  are  not  there.  Moses 
leads  his  people  within  sight  of  the  land  of  pro- 
mise ;  he  gives  them  the  discipline  that  fits  them 
for  possession  ;  but  the  great  leader  himself  dies 


228  THE  HISTORICAL  ULTIMATE 

in  the  wilderness.  And  the  question  comes,  How 
can  there  be  a  golden  age,  a  happy  condition  for 
human  beings,  where  the  creators  of  it  are  unre- 
quited and  forgotten,  where  the  fortunate  ones 
are  the  undeserving? 

The  pain  that  results  from  an  imperfect  ad- 
justment between  the  human  organism  and  the 
environment  is  another  difficulty  in  the  way  of 
optimism.  To  be  sure  the  health  of  the  race  is 
largely  in  excess  of  its  sickness;  and  yet  the 
mass  of  sickness  is  far  from  inconsiderable  ;  be- 
sides, the  amount  of  discomfort  that  inevitably 
belongs  to  existence  is  of  serious  proportions. 
The  law  of  heredity  perpetuates  this  sad  inequal- 
ity. The  incompletely  equipped  organisms  of 
to-day  represent  in  their  melancholy  privation 
the  poverty  and  unfitness  of  a  long  ancestry  of 
organisms.  The  physical  improvement  of  man- 
kind is  certainly  arrested  by  the  self-perpetu- 
ating power  of  weakness.  Every  hospital  and 
every  insane  asylum  proclaim  the  presence  in 
human  society  of  an  historic  malady.  If  the 
New  Jerusalem  is  a  city  without  a  hospital,  if 
it  involves  ideal  adjustments  between  man  and 
nature,  it  is  still  a  great  way  off. 

Here  should  be  noted,  in  order  that  pessimism 
may  have  fair  play,  the  limit  to  the  self -perpetu- 
ating power  of  wisdom  and  goodness.  Aristo- 
tle dies  ;  he  leaves  his  works  for  the  instruction 


OPTIMISM  229 

of  mankind ;  but  of  his  intellectual  power  he 
can  make  no  bequest.  Genius  leaves  behind  it 
its  wonderful  expressions  in  science,  art,  philo- 
sophy, government,  religion  ;  but  its  power  of 
insight  and  creation  it  cannot  make  over  to  the 
world.  The  loss  involved  in  every  generation 
through  the  intransmissibleness  of  intellectual 
and  moral  power  is  inconceivably  great.  Books, 
records,  institutions,  monuments,  and  other  forms 
of  influence  are  wonderful  devices  for  reducing 
the  loss  to  the  world  consequent  upon  the  death 
of  great  men.  Even  these  devices  are  poor 
when  set  beside  the  influence  of  the  living  in- 
tellect and  character.  The  New  Testament  is 
great,  but  how  poor  it  is  in  comparison  with  the 
living  Christ.  Its  chief  value  is  as  an  aid  to 
recall  him,  to  assist  the  mind  to  fashion  some 
image  of  him,  to  enter  into  the  presence  thus 
recovered.  Perhaps  one  may  find  in  this  be- 
reavement of  the  race,  particularly  in  the  death 
of  Jesus  Christ,  a  new  meaning  in  the  concep- 
tion of  the  Comforter,  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Unquestionably  death  is  one  of  the  hardest 
facts  with  which  optimism  has  to  deal.  By  it- 
self it  seems  to  me  fatal.  Death  as  a  finality 
is  the  supreme  sarcasm  upon  life.  Everything 
withers  in  its  presence  ;  its  shadow  darkens  the 
universe.  It  involves  a  contradiction  of  individ- 
ual aptitude  and  desire  such  as  to  take  the 


280  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

heart  out  of  life.  It  carries  with  it  a  sacrifice 
of  affection  that  must,  ou  the  supposition  of  its 
finality,  either  paralyze  or  brutalize  mankind. 
It  is  an  engine  for  the  destruction  of  human 
values  and  high  moral  worth  so  absolute  in  its 
operation  as  to  create  the  denial  of  God,  and  to 
carry  it  into  overwhelming  power.  Death  as  a 
finality  is  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  all  faith 
in  the  moral  character  of  the  universe,  the  ex- 
posure of  the  futility  of  optimism,  the  terrible 
irony  that  turns  to  vanity  and  nothingness  man's 
best  effort  and  spirit,  the  brutal  power  that 
quenches  in  the  one  black  abyss  of  oblivion  the 
treason  of  Judas  and  the  love  of  Jesus.  The 
complete  statement  of  the  negation  of  God  and 
the  worth  of  existence  involved  in  death  as  a 
finality  opens  the  door  out  of  this  horror.  The 
point  of  extreme  distress  is  the  point  of  saving 
help.  The  annihilation  of  our  human  world 
cannot  without  protest  be  permitted.  The  con- 
ception that  involves  this  annihilation  cannot  be 
valid.  Whatever  inverts  the  order  of  the  world 
is  thereby  branded  with  discredit. 

This  rapid  survey  of  the  main  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  hope  for  mankind  would  be  incom- 
plete without  some  notice  of  the  moral  failures 
of  history.  These  are  of  two  kinds.  There  are 
the  failures  that  are  chiefly  due  to  deplorable 
social  conditions  ;  and  there  are  the  failures  that 


OPTIMISM  231 

come  from  perversity.  The  children  born  in 
shame,  the  youth  trained  in  the  slums,  the  young 
manhood  and  womanhood  upon  whose  minds  are 
forced  the  standards  of  a  base  neighborhood,  the 
toilers  in  the  unfortunate  departments  of  the 
great  workshop  of  the  world,  the  sufferers  from 
injustice  and  neglect  who  first  lose  heart  and 
then  character,  the  multitudes  for  whom  the 
merciless  social  environment  proves  too  much, 
the  tens  of  thousands  who  go  to  the  wall  from 
want  of  sympathy,  the  millions  that  are  crushed 
out  of  existence  by  the  sheer  and  awful  sense 
of  failure,  meet  the  optimistic  view  of  human 
history  with  silent  and  terrible  contradiction. 
Those  that  sit  in  darkness  and  in  the  shadow  of 
death,  and  whom  society  leaves  unvisited  with 
light  must  regard  the  gospel  of  hope  as  the 
cruelest  mockery.  Man's  inhumanity  to  man  is 
still  the  ground  upon  which  the  character  of  the 
universe  is  arraigned.  The  despair  that  issues 
from  the  moral  failure  of  man  is  a  heavy  indict- 
ment against  society,  and  until  this  fountain  of 
pessimism  is  stopped  the  vision  of  hope  must  be 
sadly  clouded. 

Deeper  still  is  the  failure  through  personal 
perversity.  This  presents  a  new  kind  of  dif- 
ficulty in  the  way  of  progress.  There  are  the 
apparently  irreclaimable  wills  that  prevent  all 
concord,  that  prohibit  all  peace.  And  when  the 


232  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

moral  question  is  suppressed,  and  the  human 
view  is  allowed  to  control  attention,  the  case  is 
not  improved.  The  deepest  source  of  human 
misery  is  in  the  will.  It  will  be,  as  Schopen- 
hauer has  defined  it,  a  purely  selfish  force,  then 
will  and  egoism,  and  egoism  and  unhappiness 
are  the  same  thing.  Existence  in  its  inmost 
nature  thus  becomes  the  wild  assertion  of  indi- 
vidualism, the  blind  and  terrible  struggle  to 
compass  the  impossible.  Life  is  will,  will  is 
self-seeking,  self-seeking  is  misery  ;  therefore  life 
is  inevitable  misery.  Nothing  is  more  impres- 
sive in  modern  thinking  than  this  passionate 
and  desperate  arraignment  of  existence  as  evil. 
Nothing  is  more  instructive  to  the  preacher  than 
this  resolution  of  existence  into  will,  and  will 
into  pure  unmitigated  egoism.  The  whole  mean- 
ing of  man's  nature  comes  up  anew  for  deter- 
mination ;  and  the  question  of  life  as  will,  and 
will  as  egoism,  and  egoism  as  wretchedness  be- 
comes full  of  hope  when  it  calls  up  the  counter 
question  of  the  possible  transformation  of  the 
will.  If  life  is  will,  and  if  will  may  become 
love,  and  if  love  is  joy,  life  itself  must  flow  on 
in  gladness  and  hope. 

The  question  of  optimism  must  make  allow- 
ance for  the  personal  equation.  There  are  born 
optimists  and  born  pessimists.  They  invert  the 
nature  of  the  chameleon ;  whatever  lights  upon 


OPTIMISM  233 

them  takes  the  color  of  their  feeling.  One  man 
counts  up  the  joys  of  existence  and  they  seem 
to  him  to  amount  to  nothing.  Even  the  best  of 
life  seems  worse  than  non-existence.  It  is  the 
Sophoclean  view.  The  best  thing  is  not  to  be  at 
all ;  the  second  best  is  to  cease  to  be  as  soon  as 
possible.  This  mood  perpetuates  itself  in  the 
heart  of  comfort,  in  spite  of  the  consciousness 
of  genius,  the  sense  of  consequence  in  the  world, 
and  the  foresight  of  fame.  Doubtless  the  mood 
is  in  many  ways  influenced  by  the  condition  of 
society,  by  the  mysterious  order  of  human  exist- 
ence ;  but  it  has  its  origin  from  within.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  circumstances  of  Swift's  life  to 
account  for  his  melancholy  habit  of  repeating 
upon  the  successive  anniversaries  of  his  birth 
the  words  of  Job :  "  Let  the  day  perish  wherein 
I  was  born."1  Nothing  short  of  the  personal 
attitude  toward  life  can  account  for  the  excla- 
mation of  the  apostle :  "  Behold  what  manner 
of  love  the  Father  hath  bestowed  upon  us,  that 
we  should  be  called  children  of  God :  and  such 
we  are."2  The  optimism  of  Marcus  Aurelius 
and  the  pessimism  of  Nero  date  from  the  inward 
man.  Ecclesiastes  tried  all  the  great  aspects  of 
the  egoistic  life,  and  with  the  same  conclusion  of 
vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit.  The  point  to  be 
noted  is  that  environment  alone  does  not  deter- 

1  Job  iii.  3.  2  1  John  iii.  1. 


234  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

mine  the  mood.  Personal  disposition  is  at  the 
root  of  happiness  and  unhappiness.  The  chil- 
dren of  the  poor,  ill-fed,  ill-clad,  and  with  but 
the  minimum  of  outward  comfort,  are  often  hap- 
pier over  their  mud-pies  than  the  children  of  the 
rich  over  their  vast  toy  shops.  The  appearances 
of  the  world  are  frequently  delusive.  Under 
the  look  of  distress  labor  is  often  happy,  while 
under  the  aspect  of  pleasure  capital  is  often 
miserable.  As  Schopenhaur  said,  the  secret  of 
pessimism  is  in  the  human  will.  Nothing  could 
be  of  deeper  ethical  importance  than  the  pene- 
trating discussions  upon  this  subject  of  this  great 
writer.  They  amount  to  the  discovery  of  Milton's 
Satan,  — 

"  The  mind  is  its  own  place,  and  in  itself 
Can  make  a  heaven  of  hell,  a  hell  of  heaven." 

The  German  thinker  has  demonstrated  once  for 
all  that  will  in  his  conception  of  it,  that  is, 
supreme  and  mad  egoism,  can  be  the  basis  only 
of  an  existence  that  goes  from  bad  to  worse,  — 

"  Which  way  I  fly  is  hell ;  myself  am  hell ; 
And,  in  the  lowest  deep,  a  lower  deep, 
Still  threatening  to  devour  me,  opens  wide, 
To  which  the  hell  I  suffer  seems  a  heaven." 

The  powerful  and  passionate  insistence  by 
Schopenhauer  upon  will  as  egoism,  and  egoism 
as  evil,  clears  the  way  for  the  utilization  in  the 
new  discussion  of  pessimism  of  the  highest  ethi- 


OPTIMISM  235 

cal  insight  of  the  past  in  combination  with  the 
scientific  helps  of  the  present.  It  is  a  fact  that 
must  not  be  passed  unnoticed,  that  while  one 
man  growls  at  the  universe  in  the  bed  of  luxury, 
another  sends  up  the  shout :  "  I  take  pleasure 
in  weaknesses,  in  injuries,  in  necessities,  in  per- 
secutions, in  distresses  for  Christ's  sake:  for 
when  I  am  weak,  then  am  I  strong." l  A  change 
of  fortune  is  highly  desirable  for  the  majority  of 
the  race,  and  it  would  in  all  probability  bring  a 
large  increase  in  happiness ;  but  after  all,  the 
fundamental  thing  is  disposition.  John  Bunyan 
in  Bedford  Jail  is  happier  far  than  Charles  the 
Second  upon  the  throne  of  England.  It  is  for- 
ever true  that 

"  The  honest  heart  that 's  free  frae  a* 
Intended  fraud  or  guile, 
However  fortune  kick  the  ba' 
Has  aye  some  cause  to  smile." 

It  is  further  true,  according  to  the  same  au- 
thority, — 

"  It 's  no  in  titles  nor  in  rank, 
It 's  no  in  wealth  like  Lon'on  Bank, 

To  purchase  peace  and  rest.. 
It 's  no  in  makin'  muckle,  mair ; 
It 's  no  in  hooks,  it  'a  no  in  lear, 

To  make  us  truly  blest  ; 
If  happiness  hae  not  her  seat 

An*  centre  in  the  breast, 
We  may  be  wise,  or  rich,  or  great, 

But  never  can  be  blest  I 
1  2  Corinthians  xii.  10. 


236  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

Nae  treasures  nor  pleasures 
Could  make  us  happy  lang ; 
The  heart  aye 's  the  part  aye 
That  makes  us  right  or  wrang." 

There  could  not  be  a  better  statement  of  the  re- 
lation to  optimism  of  personal  disposition.  The 
whole  question  is  vastly  more  than  this ;  but 
this  and  its  implications  are  the  deepest  aspect 
of  the  matter.  It  may  be  conceded  to  pessi- 
mism that  if  life  is  will,  and  will  is  egoism,  exist- 
ence is  vanity.  Further,  one  cannot  be  thankful 
enough  for  this  radical  analysis  of  pessimism. 
The  vanity  of  existence  "  finds  expression  in  the 
whole  way  in  which  things  exist ;  in  the  infinite 
nature  of  time  and  space  as  opposed  to  the 
finite  nature  of  the  individual  in  both ;  in  the 
ever-passing  present  moment  as  the  only  mode 
of  actual  existence  ;  in  the  interdependence  and 
relativity  of  all  things ;  in  the  continual  Becom- 
ing without  ever  Being;  in  constant  wishing 
without  ever  being  satisfied ;  in  the  long  battle 
which  forms  the  history  of  life,  where  every 
effort  is  checked  by  difficulties,  and  stopped  un- 
til they  are  overcome." 1  The  only  serious  count 
in  this  indictment  against  nature  is  in  the  clause, 
"  in  constant  wishing  without  ever  being  satis- 
fied." We  are  brought  back  to  the  great  pre- 
mise of  pessimism :  Life  is  will,  will  is  egoism, 

1  Studies  in  Pessimism,  p.  33. 


OPTIMISM  237 

egoism  is  misery.  It  is  adequately  met  by  the 
statement  that  this  is  not  in  any  sense  the  pro- 
per life  of  humanity.  The  counter  and  genuine 
interpretation  of  existence  is  that  life  is  will, 
and  will  is  love,  and  love  is  joy.  The  wish  of 
love  forever  exceeds  the  achievement  of  love ; 
but  the  wish  of  the  lover  is  divine,  its  excess  is 
but  the  everlasting  sunset  in  which  the  world  is 
rolling  forward.  The  deepest  need  of  Schopen- 
hauer was  an  old-fashioned  conversion.  That 
remedy  would  go  far  toward  relieving  the  world 
of  the  gospel  of  despair ;  it  would  leave  it  with- 
out preachers,  without  a  public,  without  a  home. 
It  would  reduce  it  to  the  wholesome  shadow  of 
possible  calamity  that  adds  eagerness  to  man's 
quest  for  the  secret  place  of  the  Most  High  and 
the  shadow  of  the  Almighty. 

IV 

The  foundations  of  optimism  in  fact  must 
now  be  considered.  And  the  one  great  fact 
upon  which  it  builds  is  the  fact  of  progress. 
Things  have  been  immeasurably  worse  than 
they  now  are.  Granted  that  the  ideal  is  no- 
where in  sight,  the  movement  from  the  bad  into 
the  better  cannot  be  denied.  If  the  world  is 
a  patient,  it  is  a  convalescent  patient.  If  this 
convalescence  is  continuous  and  increasing,  hope 
of  the  largest  kind  is  reasonable.  And  by  hope 


238  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

men  are  saved.     The  challenge  of  the  poet  is 
above  reply :  — 

"  Who  shall  say  that  Fortune  grieves  him 
While  the  star  of  hope  she  leaves  him  ?  " 

It  is  upon  this  solid  basis  of  fact  that  the  opti- 
mistic view  of  history  takes  its  first  stand. 

Between  the  physical  organism  of  man  and 
his  environment  there  is  an  increasing  harmony. 
Natural  selection  means  nothing  less.  The  fittest 
survive  and  become  the  parents  of  the  next  gen- 
eration, and  the  fittest  are  those  between  whom 
and  environment  there  is  the  best  adjustment. 
There  is  no  reason  why  this  adjustment  should 
not  go  on.  Fichte's  idea  that  the  cosmos  and 
the  human  body  are  advancing  each  toward  the 
other,  that  neither  is  completely  made,  that  both 
are  moving  into  a  profounder  reconciliation, 
would  seem  to  be  verified  by  scientific  theory. 
The  future  is  bright  for  the  new  nature  and  the 
new  physical  man.  The  health  of  the  race  as 
depending  upon  the  ministry  of  nature  would 
seem  to  be  assured  by  the  conception  of  natural 
selection.  The  best  is  yet  to  be  for  the  human 
organism.  Upon  that  physical  perfection  toward 
which  history  moves,  optimism  fixes  her  atten- 
tion. The  time  may  come  when  there  shall  be 
no  more  pain.  It  is  completely  possible  that 
cosmos  and  organism  should  thus  correspond; 


OPTIMISM  239 

and  it  is  a  scientific  fact  that  progress  toward 
this  far-off  goal  is  real  and  decided. 

Natural  selection  is  aided  by  science  in  mov- 
ing toward  the  ideal  adjustment  of  environment 
and  organism.  The  science  of  sanitation  is  only 
in  its  infancy,  and  the  available  knowledge  upon 
the  subject  is  perhaps  in  no  case  put  to  full  use. 
It  is  already  within  man's  power  to  do  much 
toward  the  transformation  of  environment.  If 
all  were  done  that  could  very  well  be  done  in 
this  direction,  one  fountain  of  pessimism  would 
at  once  run  dry.  The  close  connection  between 
practical  detail  and  high  philosophical  ideas 
is  impressively  felt,  when  one  reflects  that  those 
who  devise  a  better  system  of  city  sewage,  who 
insist  upon  clean  streets,  who  fight  against  the 
tenement  pest,  who  in  remodeling  the  older 
sections  and  in  laying  out  the  new  provide  width 
and  opportunity  for  air  and  sunshine,  and  who 
seek  to  improve  generally  the  sanitary  condition, 
are  nothing  less  than  apostles  of  optimism.  The 
reduction  of  the  death  rate  is  but  one  aspect  of 
the  subject.  The  increased  vigor  and  happiness 
of  the  lives  that  survive  in  the  bad  condition  is 
nearly  equal  in  importance.  Pessimistic  moods 
and  ideas  are  perhaps  oftenest  bred  of  low 
physical  vitality.  A  robust  person  is  in  a  hope- 
ful way  toward  reaching  a  sound  view  of  human 
existence.  Unless  devoted  to  unworthy  ends, 


240  THE  HISTORICAL  ULTIMATE 

good  health  cannot  be  unhappy.  And  the  sci- 
ence that  is  supplementing  the  work  of  natural 
selection  in  bringing  about  a  better  adjustment 
between  the  human  body  and  its  environment 
is  one  of  the  mightiest  advocates  of  Christian 
optimism.  The  results  to  be  expected  in  this 
direction  in  the  near  future  it  would  be  difficult 
to  exaggerate.  Nature  and  science  working  to- 
gether may  yet  produce  a  kind  of  organism 
which,  while  not  bearing  a  charmed  life,  shall 
still  be,  so  long  as  it  endures,  full  of  charm. 
Every  achievement  of  science  opens  up  into 
another  greater  possible  achievement.  It  may 
be  that  biological  and  medical  science  is  to  be 
the  great  fulfiller  of  the  ancient  prophecy : 
"  They  shall  not  hurt  nor  destroy  in  all  my 
holy  mountain."  l  Every  approach  to  that  ideal 
condition  is  a  blow  in  the  face  of  pessimism. 
For  it  must  be  repeated  that  physical  misery  is 
one  of  the  great  sources  of  despair. 

Improvement  in  the  condition  of  labor  is  sure 
to  come.  There  has  been  already  great  improve- 
ment. Within  the  nineteenth  century  hours  of 
work  have  been  regulated,  and  shortened  from 
extremes  of  twelve  and  fourteen  hours  to  eight. 
The  continued  introduction  of  machinery  of 
higher  productive  power  must  tend  to  further 
reduction.  The  chief  anxiety  would  seem  to 

1  Isaiah  xi.  9. 


OPTIMISM  241 

be  not  about  the  possibility  of  this  change,  but 
about  the  character  which  alone  can  make  it  a 
blessing.  Wider  intellectual  interests,  a  taste 
for  refined  pleasures  and  amusements,  and  a 
distincter  and  stronger  purpose  for  rectitude 
would  seem  to  be  essential  to  the  advent  of 
larger  leisure  for  the  multitudes,  if  it  is  to  bene- 
fit them.  This  would  appear  to  be  a  chief  rea- 
son for  the  absence  of  philanthropic  interest  in 
the  matter.  Work  under  good  conditions  suffi- 
cient to  absorb  the  strength  of  the  workman  is, 
in  the  absence  of  intellectual  tastes  and  virtuous 
habits,  a  moral  necessity.  The  main  endeavor, 
therefore,  must  be  to  qualify  the  masses  of  men 
for  the  freedom  that  is  sure  to  come ;  and  the 
swifter  the  qualification  is  attained  the  speedier 
will  the  leisure  be  exacted. 

An  education  for  freedom  is  the  great  neces- 
sity of  the  time.  Over-population  is  due  to 
rampant  animalism.  The  standard  of  comfort 
is  set  by  ignorance  and  wretchedness.  Intellec- 
tual and  moral  elevation  will  always  limit  re- 
production. The  school  for  the  people  is  the 
supreme  solicitude  of  the  optimist.  It  has  been 
in  existence  only  for  a  brief  period.  Its  char- 
acter has  never  received  the  attention  which  its 
importance  demands.  Like  all  other  good  things 
it  must  struggle  into  recognition  and  favor. 
When  it  becomes  what  it  might  any  day  be- 


242  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

come,  what  it  is  bound  to  become  at  no  distant 
time,  provision  will  be  made  for  a  new  Amer- 
ica, and  a  new  America  will  be  a  vast  help  in 
bringing  in  a  new  world.  The  physical  evils 
resulting  from  over-work,  over-population,  the 
standard  of  comfort  that  is  set  by  ignorance 
and  wretchedness  will  yield  to  the  education 
that  fits  the  masses  of  men  for  the  new  privi- 
lege. Nothing  is  hopeless  for  the  disciple  of 
Jesus  Christ.  A  better  economic  condition  has 
come ;  a  better  still  is  bound  to  come.  So  cer- 
tain is  this  that  the  chief  concern  of  the  lover 
of  his  kind  should  be  that  the  toiler  shall  be 
adequate  to  his  freedom. 

It  must  be  remarked  that  under  all  its  present 
severities  the  work  of  mankind  is  for  the  most 
part  a  source  of  moral  vigor  and  hope.  The 
virtue  enshrined  in  the  labor  that  keeps  the 
human  race  alive  is  beyond  all  calculation. 
The  heroism  developed  in  the  production  and 
transportation  of  the  commodities  that  support 
life  is  nothing  less  than  sublime.  The  risk  that 
the  miner  ignores,  the  exposure  that  trainmen 
and  sailors  scorn,  the  hardship  that  is  encoun- 
tered and  laughed  at  in  a  hundred  different  lines 
of  activity,  the  high  hurdles  over  which  men  go 
with  shouts  of  glee  in  the  race  of  service,  the 
defiance  flung  in  the  face  of  broiling  heat  and 
blinding  cold  by  the  multitudinous  servants  of 


OPTIMISM  243 

mankind,  their  fine  disdain  for  space  and  time 
and  tide  and  tempest,  is  one  of  the  great  sights 
of  the  world.  And  the  fine  thing  about  it  is  that 
work  of  this  kind  never  thinks  that  it  is  heroic 
or  in  any  way  morally  meritorious,  that  it  is  the 
supreme  commonplace.  Labor  is  the  world- 
maker  ;  capital  and  guiding  intelligence  are  con- 
ditions. The  true  Atlas  that  walks  and  frisks 
with  the  world  upon  his  shoulders  is  toil.  This 
primary  department  of  civilization  is  great  in  it- 
self. In  Kipling  it  has  found  an  understanding 
heart  and  a  noble  voice.  The  best  note  in  Kip- 
ling's poetry  is  the  recognition  of  the  worth  for 
an  empire  of  its  humble  and  nameless  servants, 
their  unconscious  heroism,  and  their  fundamental 
manhood.  Optimism  is  the  note  of  Kipling's 
work  because  his  work  is  inspired  by  the  world's 
work.  Pessimisms  are  not  bred  from  the  heart 
of  the  self-forgetful  victorious  workman ;  they 
spring  from  the  mean  compassions  of  the  un- 
prophetic  spectator  and  from  the  meditations 
of  disappointed  and  depraved  egoism. 

V 

The  deepest  foundation  of  optimism  is  in 
faith.  God's  world-plan  is  the  education  of 
mankind ;  that  is  the  great  assumption  of  reli- 
gious faith.  In  the  light  of  this  fundamental 
conception  many  things  otherwise  unaccountable 


244  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

become  plain.  The  world-plan  of  God  seen  and 
served  secures  joy  and  hope  for  all  worthful 
souls.  What  men  most  need  for  a  happy  life  is 
a  cause  worthy  of  their  supreme  devotion.  The 
sufferings  of  the  apostles  of  Christ  were  great ; 
and  yet  in  their  writings  they  appear  among  the 
most  joyous  men  who  have  ever  lived.  The  des- 
ignation of  Jesus  as  a  man  of  sorrows  is  one- 
sided ;  Goethe's  description  of  Christianity  as 
the  worship  of  sorrow  is  but  a  half  truth.  As 
he  appears  in  the  Gospels  Jesus  is  the  most  joy- 
ous person  known  to  history.  He  has  been  able 
to  impart  to  those  who  have  followed  him,  and 
who  have  suffered  most  for  their  Christian  dis- 
cipleship,  a  joy  of  which  nothing  could  bereave 
them.  And  if  one  shall  inquire  after  the  source 
of  this  joy  in  the  suffering  servants  of  righteous- 
ness, one  shall  find  it  to  lie  in  their  cause.  It 
is  this  that  has  given  them  a  peace  above  all 
earthly  dignities.  The  vision  of  God's  world- 
plan  for  mankind  has  been  the  joy  set  before 
them.  In  the  strength  of  this  vision  they  have 
been  able  to  endure  the  cross  and  to  despise  the 
shame.  Psalmist,  prophet,  apostle,  martyr,  and 
reformer,  worthful  men  in  all  times  and  among 
all  peoples,  have  seen  some  aspect  of  the  king- 
dom of  God,  and  in  beholding  and  serving  it, 
the  God  of  peace  and  of  hope  has  passed  into 
their  lives.  Under  the  shadow  of  the  Infinite, 


OPTIMISM  245 

chastened  with  its  rebuke  and  exalted  with  its 
benignity,  the  men  and  women  who  have  changed 
the  world  from  glory  to  glory  have  lived.  Their 
vision  has  been  their  solace,  and  their  cause  has 
been  their  comfort ;  their  suffering  devotion  has 
been  turned  to  joy.  For  the  expulsion  of  pes- 
simism we  need  goodness;  the  goodness  that 
consists  in  the  vision  of  God's  world-plan,  and 
in  utter  devotion  to  it. 

Here  too  is  the  comfort  of  the  weak.  They 
are  a  sorrow  to  themselves.  In  their  ignorance, 
in  their  moral  failure,  and  in  their  weakness  they 
can  find  only  misery.  But  beyond  them  and 
including  them  is  the  educative  purpose  of  God. 
Its  greatness  and  richness  surpass  all  imagina- 
tion. To  be  under  that  process  of  education  is 
a  noble  happiness,  even  if  the  result  is  mainly 
an  intensified  consciousness  of  weakness.  The 
universe  is  thus  conservative  of  the  apparently 
worthless ;  it  is  dealing  heroically  with  them 
that  the  worthf ul  soul  may  be  set  free ;  it  is  rais- 
ing within  them  reasonable  expectations  of  an 
existence  wrought  over  into  a  new  creation. 
And  along  with  this  vision  of  the  educative  pur- 
pose of  God  for  the  individual  life  there  is  the 
sense  of  the  world-process  for  the  recovery  of 
sight  to  the  blind.  History  is  seen  to  be  inex- 
orably just,  and  for  this  reason  infinitely  kind. 
Here  again  the  cause  is  the  source  of  endless 


246  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

satisfaction.  The  weakness  is  the  weakness  of 
infancy ;  the  process  goes  on  that  out  of  weak- 
ness makes  men  strong.  More  and  more  the 
presence  of  a  just  pity  is  felt  in  life,  and  more 
and  more  a  just  pity  is  seen  at  work  in  human 
civilization.  There  is  a  call  away  from  the 
brute,  and  up  to  the  full  man ;  and  the  call  is 
not  entirely  unanswered.  The  hope  that  wis- 
dom and  pity  will  be  more  and  more  potent  in 
the  organization  of  society  is  a  reasonable  hope. 
The  faith  that  behind  this  larger  organization  of 
society  in  wisdom  and  pity  is  the  prevailing  ac- 
tion of  the  Infinite  wisdom  and  pity  is  a  reason- 
able faith.  The  joy  that  comes  to  the  weak 
from  the  sense  of  the  kingdom  that  includes 
their  ideals,  that  covers  their  interests,  that  works 
for  their  exaltation,  is  a  warrantable  joy.  In 
their  cause  they  are  prophetically  complete. 
The  evil  of  existence  is  overcome  by  experience 
and  anticipation. 

The  perverse  man  is  not  unamenable  to  this 
illumination  through  life.  Negative  education 
is  precious.  It  is  often  an  indispensable  pre- 
liminary to  progress.  A  vast  negation  preceded 
the  great  utterance:  "I  know  myself  now." 
Indeed,  much  of  the  divine  education  is  of  this 
cliaracter ;  it  is  finally  an  availing  protest  against 
cherished  selfishness,  a  conclusive  demonstration 
of  the  insanity  of  the  sinful  life.  And  if  that 


OPTIMISM  247 

is  the  larger  part  of  the  work  of  God  with  the 
majority  of  Christian  people,  it  is  not  discour- 
aging when  we  have  to  confess  that  it  is  nearly 
the  whole  achievement  of  God  with  the  mass  of 
mankind.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  be  convinced 
that  the  way  of  the  transgressor  is  hard.  It  is 
much  to  have  it  demonstrated  that  the  life  with- 
out God  is  the  life  without  hope.  It  is  not 
unworthy  of  the  Eternal  spirit  to  reason  wrong- 
doing into  the  ground,  to  reduce  egoism  to  the 
sense  of  its  fatuity,  to  expose  the  impossible 
hope  of  the  loveless  soul,  to  obstruct  the  path  to 
moral  perdition  by  an  overwhelming  negation. 

This  is  the  discipline  to  which  individual 
perversity  is  subjected ;  the  operation  of  this 
relentless  kindness  is  seen  throughout  the  social 
whole.  Each  generation  makes  for  itself  the 
immemorial  discovery  that  the  wages  of  sin  is 
death,  and  that  the  recompense  of  high  fidelity 
is  eternal  life.  The  great  commonplace  of  eth- 
ical experience  is  that  he  who  saves  his  life 
shall  lose  it,  and  that  he  who  loses  his  life  shall 
find  it.  This  paradox  of  being,  this  immemorial 
discovery  of  individuals  and  generations,  is  bound 
to  tell  upon  the  coming  race.  The  ancient  blun- 
der of  self-seeking  will  not  always  be  repeated ; 
the  joy  of  existence  will  not  forever  be  sought 
for,  against  the  whole  protest  of  the  past,  in 
impossible  fields.  Light  will,  in  the  overwhelm- 


248  THE  HISTORICAL  ULTIMATE 

ing  majority  of  cases,  be  welcome,  and  darkness 
will  be  disowned.  And  in  the  cases  of  fierce 
perversity  the  great  negation  of  the  loveless  life 
will  be  repeated  with  a  certainty  and  an  empha- 
sis that  cannot  be  unavailing.  If  good  men 
take  their  chief  joy  in  God's  world-plan  for 
mankind;  if,  when  they  are  paid  in  outward 
suffering  and  calamity  for  their  great  service, 
they  still  find  inexpressible  solace  in  their  cause  ; 
if  the  weak  become  oblivious  of  their  affliction 
through  trust  in  the  Infinite  pity  that  remem- 
bers them  and  that  works  for  them,  and  if  per- 
verse men  are  finally  driven  into  the  consciousness 
that  egoism  is  the  ideal  of  the  fool,  —  optimism 
is  a  faith  that  has  good  foundations. 

On  this  question  of  optimism,  science  gives 
facts  and  tendencies  in  the  physical  and  social 
life  of  man;  faith  gives  a  history  of  the  vic- 
torious soul,  a  record  of  its  endeavor  to  bring 
the  unbelieving  world  into  its  own  light  and 
peace,  and  an  insight  into  the  world-plan  of  the 
Infinite  educator  of  human  beings.  These  are 
the  facts  ;  these  are  the  prevailing  tendencies ; 
these  are  the  spiritual  experiences  and  endeavors 
of  the  world's  life ;  and  this  is  its  best  insight. 
Here  we  rest  the  case  of  historical  optimism. 
When  we  confine  the  vision  to  the  history  of 
man  on  this  earth,  the  facts  are  still  facts,  the 
tendencies  are  still  tendencies,  the  spiritual 


OPTIMISM  249 

peace  and  power  are  still  valid,  and  God's  world- 
plan  is  still  the  best  account  of  what  we  see  and 
of  what  it  is  reasonable  to  hope  for.  It  is  true 
that  we  cannot  define  the  issue  of  earthly  his- 
tory. It  had  a  beginning ;  some  time  it  may 
have  an  end.  What  the  history  of  man  upon 
this  planet  will  be  when  the  record  is  complete, 
it  is  impossible  even  to  guess.  Infinite  possi- 
bilities of  disaster  exist ;  infinite  possibilities  of 
high  character  and  happiness  also  exist ;  and  in 
the  historic  process  to-day  we  behold  at  work 
forces  that  slowly  eliminate  the  evil  possibilities, 
and  that  slowly  realize  the  good  possibilities. 
That  condition  of  human  society  may  not  be  all 
that  one  could  wish ;  it  is  the  opportunity  of 
heroism  and  the  warrant  of  hope. 

Here  we  might  leave  the  subject.  The  life  of 
man  after  he  leaves  this  earth  might  be  ignored. 
We  have  been  dealing  with  the  outlook  for  time. 
Why  venture  upon  the  outlook  beyond  time? 
First,  because  death  is  the  chief  support  of 
pessimism.  Second,  because  human  history  on 
earth  must  ever  remain  incomplete.  Death  must 
be  transcended  if  optimism  is  to  live ;  and  time 
must  be  held  to  be  but  the  earliest  epoch  of 
man's  endless  career.  For  this  second  conten- 
tion we  find  warrant  in  the  soul.  The  cry  of  the 
psalmist  is  true  to  the  soul,  individual,  social,  his- 
toric, racial :  "  I  shall  be  satisfied,  when  I  awake, 


250  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

in  thy  likeness."  Kantrs  counsels  of  perfection 
are  a  genuine  rendering  of  the  human  con- 
science. The  moral  law  calls  for  the  perfect 
man,  for  the  perfect  society ;  and  to  meet  this 
call  from  within,  it  is  reasonable  to  assume  time 
from  above.  For  an  endless  task  there  must  be 
an  endless  opportunity.  Plato's  "vision  of  all 
time  and  all  existence "  has  its  function  here. 
The  history  of  the  soul  and  of  the  society  of 
souls  is  in  the  visible  and  yet  more  in  the  in- 
visible. In  the  presence  of  the  full  career  of 
man  as  he  stands  in  this  Platonic  vision,  his  life 
upon  the  earth  is  insignificant  indeed.  It  is 
impossible  that  it  should  appear  to  be  anything 
great.1  Scientific  optimism  should  become  phi- 
losophic optimism ;  the  horizons  that  are  fixed 
for  science  should  be  transcended  by  the  bound- 
less outlook  of  philosophy.  And  it  is  here 
impossible  not  to  recall  the  words  of  the  Sover- 
eign teacher  upon  the  meaning  of  human  ex- 
istence :  "  Ye  therefore  shall  be  perfect,  as  your 
heavenly  Father  is  perfect."2  Than  that  ideal 
there  could  be  nothing  more  hopeless  or  absurd 
if  for  man  there  is  no  history  beyond  this  world. 
God's  world-plan  for  the  education  of  man- 
kind discounts  the  importance  of  death.  For  it 
death  is  abolished ;  for  it  there  is  no  death.  It 

1  Republic,  Book  vi.  p.  486  A.  B. 

2  Matthew  v.  48. 


OPTIMISM  251 

involves  with  its  own  reality  the  immortality  of 
man.  In  the  presence  of  this  plan  all  men  are 
one.  « 

We  are  one  in  origin,  in  fortune,  and  in 
destiny.  The  ideas  of  justice  and  of  solidarity 
should  control  faith  here.  The  better  civiliza- 
tion of  the  world  and  its  hope  is  the  result  largely 
of  unrequited  service.  What  has  become  of  those 
heroic  servants  of  man  ?  They  saved  others,  them- 
selves they  could  not  save.  Is,  therefore,  ex- 
tinction of  being  the  way  in  which  the  universe 
rewards  its  best  servants  ?  The  justice  of  the 
universe  is  here  at  stake,  and  one  who  feels  that 
the  sense  of  justice  is  the  best  gift  to  man  from 
his  Maker  will  not  lightly  conclude  that  his 
Maker  has  given  his  conscience  entirely  away. 
When  we  hold  God  to  justice  we  hold  him  by 
the  supreme  distinction  which  he  has  conferred 
upon  human  beings.  And  it  is  easy  to  see  that 
if  the  past  is  incomplete  without  the  better  fu- 
ture into  which  it  is  to  be  resolved,  the  better 
future  itself  needs  for  its  integrity  a  real  union 
with  the  past  that  has  made  it  possible.  The 
purpose  of  goodness  that  works  itself  out  in  his- 
tory is  the  ground  of  hope  not  only  for  time  but 
also  for  eternity.  That  purpose  honors  the  great 
ideas  of  justice  and  solidarity.  It  is  but  just, 
and  it  is  in  line  with  the  social  nature  of  man, 
that  somewhere,  somehow,  and  at  some  time  the 


252  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

sower  and  the  reaper  should  rejoice  together. 
The  statement  that  this  cannot  be,  owing  to  the 
connection  between  the  individual  mind  and  the 
physical  organism,  is  simply  idle  chatter  in  the 
face  of  victorious  goodness  working  through  his- 
tory. All  that  is  essential  to  the  self-consistency 
of  victorious  goodness  must  be  assumed  to  be 
possible.  As  Renan  said  that  forty  years  of  labor 
and  meditation  had  merely  enabled  him  to  arrive 
at  conclusions  at  which  "  a  street  Arab  arrives 
off-hand,"  l  so  it  may  be  asserted  that  the  deep- 
est student  of  the  connection  of  mind  and  body 
knows  as  much  about  their  ultimate  relation 
as  the  peasant,  and  no  more.  Objections  to  the 
ethical  argument  for  immortality  founded  upon 
ignorance  deserve  no  more  deference  to-day  than 
they  received  from  Butler  in  his  time.  One  who 
has  for  the  thousandth  time  gone  over  the  uni- 
versally accessible  evidence  for  the  close  corre- 
spondence of  mind  and  organism,  repeating  to 
one's  self  of  faith  in  immortality,  "  How  can 
these  things  be  ? "  comes  at  length  to  suspect 
that  one  is  a  logical  fool.  In  an  ethical  world 
ignorance  of  the  final  value  for  the  soul  of  brain 
organization  can  hardly  count  as  an  argument 
against  a  future  life  for  man.  Too  much  de- 
ference to  ignorance  in  one  direction  and  too 

1  Bruneti&re,  Manual  of  the  History  of  French  Literature^  p. 
521. 


OPTIMISM  253 

little  respect  for  knowledge  in  another  is  the 
source  of  the  greater  part  of  modern  doubt  over 
future  existence.  Upon  this  subject,  the  moral 
world  hi  which  every  true  man  lives  has  the  right 
to  the  last  word.  Over  against  the  physiolo- 
gist's ignorance  the  moralist  sets  his  knowledge ; 
and  it  would  seem  to  be  only  sane  to  trust  the 
august  moral  world  that  one  knows  rather  than 
the  physical  world  that  one  does  not  know. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  function  of  the  Pla- 
tonic myth  is  to  cover  with  the  forms  of  imagi- 
nation realities  either  inaccessible  to  the  process 
of  reason  or  insufficiently  apprehended  by  reason. 
Every  subject  becomes  infinite,  and  when  the 
subject  under  consideration  is  a  fundamental 
human  interest,  it  is  natural,  and  perhaps  not 
unfitting,  in  the  last  resort,  to  fall  back  upon 
the  poetry  of  faith.  Optimism  looks  for  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  right- 
eousness. It  lives  in  the  vision  of  the  holy  city, 
the  new  Jerusalem  coming  down  out  of  heaven 
from  God.  It  believes  that  the  tabernacle  of 
God  is  with  men.  This  is  the  first  interest  of 
optimism.  The  fortune  of  mankind  on  this  earth 
is  its  great  primary  concern ;  and  its  note  of 
hope  is  held  for  the  sake  of  faith  in  the  Maker 
of  man,  and  as  the  availing  inspiration  in  all 
high  and  serious  work  for  man,  no  less  than  as 
warranted,  at  least  in  a  chastened  form,  by  the 


254  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

fact  of  human  progress.  It  is  this  primary  in- 
terest of  optimism  that  guards  its  ethical  value. 
Mere  expectation  of  a  happier  future  for  man- 
kind on  this  earth  is  of  little  service.  An  un- 
ethical optimism  is  hardly  other  than  a  calamity. 
There  are  those  who  cry  peace  when  there  is  no 
peace.  It  is  forever  true  that  there  is  no  peace 
for  the  wicked.  If  wickedness  cannot  be  ex- 
pelled from  the  spirit  and  life  of  mankind  the 
expectation  of  a  happier  future  is  idle.  Better 
a  thousand  times  the  stern  ethics  of  the  despair- 
ing prophet  than  the  concealed  decay,  the  gilded 
corruptions,  the  whited  sepulchres  of  the  con- 
scienceless dreamer.  All  the  legitimate  hopes 
of  man  are  bound  up  with  the  struggle  for 
righteousness.  If  the  struggle  for  social  right- 
eousness is  vain,  optimism  is  vain.  If  social 
righteousness  is,  all  things  considered,  a  growing 
interest,  a  gaining  cause,  an  invincible  force, 
optimism  is  justified.  It  is  the  vision  of  the  ex- 
alted humanity  in  the  happier  environment,  — 
the  angel  of  the  apocalyptic  writer  standing  in 
the  sun,  —  in  the  strength  of  which  the  arduous 
duty  of  the  day  and  the  hour  is  done. 

This,  however,  is  not  the  end.  The  poetry 
of  faith  goes  beyond  time.  It  views  as  one  the 
church  militant  and  the  church  triumphant. 

"  Part  of  the  host  have  crossed  the  flood 
And  part  are  crossing  now." 


OPTIMISM  255 

In  the  New  Testament,  time  and  eternity  are 
never  definitely  separated,  human  history  here 
and  beyond  death.  In  one  of  the  greatest  writ- 
ings of  the  New  Testament  the  author,  after 
noting  immense  progress  in  faith  and  in  oppor- 
tunity, blends  the  present  with  its  privilege  in 
the  fellowship  of  the  Eternal.  "  Ye  are  come 
unto  mount  Zion,  and  unto  the  city  of  the  living 
God,  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  and  to  innumer- 
able hosts  of  angels,  to  the  general  assembly 
and  church  of  the  firstborn  who  are  enrolled  in 
heaven,  and  to  God  the  Judge  of  all,  and  to  the 
spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect,  and  to  Jesus 
the  mediator  of  a  new  covenant,  and  to  the  blood 
of  sprinkling  that  speaketh  better  than  that  of 
Abel." 2  The  vision  of  the  Eternal  God,  the  risen, 
ascended,  and  reigning  Master,  the  common- 
wealth of  the  brave  and  pure  in  the  unseen,  in 
fellowship  with  whom  the  community  of  believers 
on  earth  forever  stands,  is  a  vision  that  accords 
with  the  deepest  necessities  of  faith.  The  dis- 
cipline of  mankind  is  continued  in  the  invisible. 
The  ideals  of  humanity  have  their  perfect  reali- 
zation in  the  Eternal.  The  solidarity  of  the  race, 
on  earth  and  in  heaven,  is  the  fundamental  truth 
of  our  human  world.  The  ground  of  hope  is  in 
him  who  reveals  the  nature  of  man  and  of  God, 
who  discovers  in  himself  the  goodness  and  the 

1  Heb.  xii.  23. 


256  THE  HISTORICAL   ULTIMATE 

severity  of  the  Father,  and  who  interprets  in  the 
interest  of  mankind  the  awful  process  of  judg- 
ment by  which  the  universe  is  purified  and  glo- 
rified. "  Wherefore,  receiving  a  kingdom  that 
cannot  be  shaken,  let  us  have  grace,  whereby 
we  may  offer  service  well-pleasing  to  God  with 
reverence  and  awe :  for  our  God  is  a  consuming 

fire."1 

1  Hebrews  x ii .  28. 


CHAPTER 
THE   BELIGIOUS   ULTIMATE  :   JESUS   CHRIST 


IN  the  study  of  Jesus  Christ  the  fitting  attitude 
of  mind  is  of  serious  moment.  It  is  not  gener- 
ally seen,  even  among  teachers  and  investigators, 
that  the  process  of  the  intellect  depends  for  its 
validity  not  only  upon  scientific  method,  but  also 
upon  purity  of  motive.  Prejudice  can  distort 
the  whole  method  and  process  of  science,  and  in 
the  name  of  science  conduct  to  the  barren  and 
foregone  conclusion.  The  absence  of  the  proper 
interest,  in  the  treatment  of  a  fundamental  ques- 
tion, is  likewise  fatal.  It  is  often  observed  of 
writers  that  they  are  not  at  home  in  their  sub- 
jects. Through  want  of  adequate  learning  or 
discipline  or  interest  they  are  in  a  foreign  land. 
And  even  when  the  learning  and  the  discipline 
are  sufficient,  if  the  fundamental  and  native  im- 
pulse is  wanting,  these  writers  are  still  hopeless 
foreigners.  Scientific  method  must  complete 
itself  in  the  integrity  that  belongs  alone  to  the 
pure  in  heart. 

It  is  a  sound  remark  that  piety  without  intel- 


258  THE  RELIGIOUS   ULTIMATE 

ligence  is  a  peril  to  religion.  It  is  apt  to  issue 
in  fanaticism.  It  is  likely  to  define  in  an  un- 
natural way  the  spirit  and  the  scope  of  religion. 
It  is  nearly  sure  to  put  a  fixed  gulf  between  the 
mood  in  which  a  man  worships  God  and  the 
mood  in  which  he  is  to  associate  and  work  with 
men.  Piety  without  intellect  is  the  opportunity 
of  the  impostor,  both  orthodox  and  heterodox. 
It  is  the  gunpowder  for  the  fire  of  the  abuser 
and  blasphemer  of  great  human  interests.  Noble, 
elementary  feeling,  standing  apart  from  the  in- 
tellect, and  unserved  by  it,  has  wrought  upon 
the  soul  of  religion  inconceivable  outrage.  It 
was  this  history  of  outrage  that  led  the  govern- 
ing philosophers  in  France  and  in  Great  Britain 
in  the  eighteenth  century  to  regard  religion  as 
little  less  than  a  disease  and  scourge.  This  dis- 
cipline in  extreme  opinion  has  resulted,  after 
much  wandering,  in  the  conclusion  that  no  feel- 
ing, no  interest  is  complete,  without  the  service 
of  the  intellect.  It  must  be  understood  in  order 
to  come  to  its  best,  it  must  pass  through  the 
purifying  fires  of  intelligence,  find  its  relation 
to  other  interests,  come  to  a  knowledge  of  itself 
and  its  place  in  human  nature  through  the  ser- 
vice of  the  reason. 

But  if  piety  without  intellect  is  one  peril  of 
religion,  it  is  equally  true  that  intellect  without 
piety  is  another  peril  of  religion.  There  is  in- 


JESUS  CHRIST  259 

deed  no  choice  between  the  evils  of  a  great  inter- 
est not  understood  and  misunderstood.  In  the 
one  case,  there  is  no  attempt  to  know,  to  exalt, 
to  use  lawfully  the  great  interest ;  in  the  other, 
there  is  the  evil  done  to  religion  by  the  under- 
standing that  works  without  genuine  sympathy 
with  religion.  After  all  that  has  been  said  in 
praise  of  it,  the  critical  spirit  is  good  only  in  so 
far  as  it  springs  from  fear  to  believe  a  lie.  The 
critical  spirit  is  a  method  for  maintaining  intel- 
lectual uprightness ;  it  implies  the  love  of  truth 
and  the  most  serious  devotion  to  it.  The  critical 
spirit  thus  born  shows  itself  only  incidentally 
in  destruction ;  its  great  distinction  is  discovery 
and  appreciation.  If  the  object  is  truth  the  best 
path  to  it  is  sympathy.  Intellectual  wariness  is 
not  only  compatible  with  sympathy ;  in  its  high- 
est development  sympathy  is  essential  to  it.  In 
the  eyes  of  his  Sistine  Madonna,  Raphael  has 
depicted  the  consciousness  of  infinite  possession 
and  infinite  solicitude.  The  last  thing  to  be  im- 
posed upon  is  intelligent  and  noble  maternity. 
The  critical  spirit  is  there  in  supreme  incisive- 
ness  because  it  is  tempered,  edged,  and  used 
by  love.  Christian  discipleship  at  its  best  is 
supremely  critical  because  it  is  supremely  de- 
voted to  reality.  The  devotion  is  primary,  the 
appreciation  is  the  main  interest ;  the  negative 
process  is  an  intellectual  device  in  the  service 


260  THE  RELIGIOUS   ULTIMATE 

of  the  heart.  At  its  best  the  believer's  study 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  most  authentic,  not  only 
because  he  alone  commands  the  facts,  but  also 
because  he  has  the  deepest  desire  to  reach  the 
truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth.  The  expert's 
criticism  on  the  seaworthiness  of  a  ship  becomes 
much  more  anxious  and  severe  when  the  ship 
is  in  a  gale,  and  the  expert's  family  are  on 
board.  When  Paul  said,  "  I  know  whom  I 
have  believed,"  he  gave  expression  to  a  result 
obtained  by  the  searching  criticism  of  love.  He 
had  a  great  stake  in  the  trustworthiness  of  his 
Master,  and  he  had  taken  the  utmost  pains  to 
reach  the  fact.  In  the  Gospels  Jesus  appears 
as  lover  and  judge.  His  character  as  lover  of 
men  fits  him,  and  indeed  compels  him,  to  be 
their  severest  judge.  And  the  awful  criticism 
of  love  that  a  man  finds  applied  to  himself  when 
he  opens  his  New  Testament,  he  is  in  duty 
bound  to  apply  to  the  central  person  there. 
Only  let  it  be  the  criticism  of  love,  the  appre- 
ciation that  advances  passionately  and  warily, 
the  sympathy  that  is  insight  and  receptivity 
and  that  cannot  be  mocked,  and  great  results 
must  follow.  The  last  person  to  take  words  for 
power,  the  show  of  relief  for  actual  deliverance, 
is  the  man  who  identifies  truth  and  life.  One 
may  as  well  expect  the  Syrophoenician  mother 
to  be  satisfied  with  anything  less  than  the  heal- 


JESUS  CHRIST  261 

ing  of  her  child.  The  spectator  may  be  made 
to  believe  that  the  semblance  is  the  reality,  but 
the  sufferer  never.  Criticism  of  Jesus  Christ 
is  not  new ;  he  was  the  subject  of  it  from  his 
baptism  to  his  ascension.  The  criticism  of  need, 
and  of  love,  he  did  not  deprecate  ;  rather  he  in- 
spired it,  as  in  the  case  of  Nicodemus,  and  made 
it  more  profound.  The  criticism  that  he  con- 
demned was  that  of  the  Pharisee,  the  criticism 
that  was  a  cover  for  prejudice.  Nowhere  is  it 
more  essential  than  here  that  the  modern  stu- 
dent should  be  upon  his  guard.  The  criticism  of 
love  means  life  ;  the  criticism  that  is  a  learned 
concealment  of  aboriginal  antagonism  and  culti- 
vated bias  is  a  movement  away  from  truth. 
Study  your  man,  consider  your  critic,  get  at  the 
inmost  spirit  and  motive  of  your  adverse  writer ; 
in  the  sphere  of  moral  truth  the  man  is  always 
determinative  of  his  work  and  its  worth. 

The  school  of  Christ  is  the  place  where  judg- 
ment is  ripened  into  something  like  adequacy. 
Christian  discipleship  should  precede  Christian 
apostleship.  The  Master  is  too  great  to  be  made 
the  subject  of  extemporaneous  judgment.  The 
magnitude  of  Jesus  calls  for  reverent  appreciation. 
The  easy  manner  in  which  Jesus  and  his  teach- 
ing are  considered  by  a  certain  class  of  negative 
writers,  the  high  assurance  of  complete  ability 
to  comprehend  Christianity  and  its  Founder 


262  THE  RELIGIOUS  ULTIMATE 

with  which  they  write,  the  monstrous  assump- 
tion with  which  they  proceed  to  indicate  the 
limitations  and  the  defects  in  the  thought  of 
Christ,  are  a  melancholy  revelation  of  incurable 
incompetence.  There  is  in  this  mood  total  in- 
sensibility to  the  majesty  of  Jesus  in  human 
history.  Jesus  has  been  so  much  to  mankind 
that  any  scholar  with  ordinary  historic  imagi- 
nation and  common  intellectual  decency  must 
uncover  in  his  presence.  It  is  but  homage  to 
reality  to  confess  the  transcendent  greatness  of 
Jesus,  and  to  study  him  in  any  other  mood  is 
sheer  impertinence.  The  great  teachers  of  man- 
kind have  won  the  right  to  our  deference.  We 
do  not  fear  to  test  them ;  but  we  fear  to  test 
them  except  in  the  consciousness  of  their  im- 
measurable significance.  Shakespere,  Dante, 
Homer,  must  be  approached  in  this  way ;  other- 
wise the  critic  is  ridiculous.  His  opportunity 
is  to  know  men  who  knew  life  vastly  better  than 
he  knows  it.  The  great  thinkers  of  mankind 
command  this  homage.  Their  size  should  save 
them  from  impertinence.  Plato,  Aristotle,  Kant, 
Berkeley,  Hume,  and  Hegel  have  worlds  of  wis- 
dom in  them;  and  if  that  wisdom  has  limita- 
tions, these  can  best  be  discovered  by  the  patient 
and  reverent  learner.  Criticism  in  general  is 
poor  because  it  is  ignorant,  and  again  because  it 
proceeds  from  a  mean  spirit.  Learning  wide 


JESUS  CHRIST  263 

and  deep  is  essential  to  worthy  judgment,  and 
learning  that  sees  beyond  it  the  untraveled 
heights  of  its  alluring  subject.  The  world  is 
tired  of  manufactured  Christologies,  whether  or- 
thodox or  heterodox.  The  notice  served  upon 
the  Christian  thinker  is :  Get  your  facts  ;  then 
try,  if  you  can,  to  compass  their  meaning ;  admit 
as  the  supreme  fact  the  immeasurableness  of  the 
Master ;  and  let  this  influence  not  only  the  in- 
tellectual conclusion,  but  also  imagination  and 
feeling.  The  preachers  who  most  truly  present 
their  Master  are  the  men  in  whose  imagination 
and  feeling  lies  the  image  of  his  unlimited  sig- 
nificance for  human  life.  Dogmatic  conclusions 
concerning  Jesus  Christ  are  nearly  a  necessity 
for  the  philosophic  student ;  but  even  this  student 
is  comparatively  powerless  as  a  teacher  until  the 
subject  of  his  opinion  transcends  opinion,  until 
it  calls  to  the  deepest  in  humanity, — 

"  Lift  up  your  heads,  O  ye  gates ; 
And  be  ye  lift  up,  ye  everlasting  doors : 
And  the  King  of  glory  shall  come  in."  1 

The  significance  of  Jesus  for  the  religious  need 
is  the  proper  subject  of  philosophic  thought ;  but 
the  thought  is  mad  that  does  not  confess  the 
incomprehensible  greatness  of  that  significance. 
Even  on  a  naturalistic  conception  of  the  charac- 
ter of  Jesus,  the  fact  remains  of  his  unique  and 

1  Psalm  xxiv.  7. 


264  THE  RELIGIOUS   ULTIMATE 

immeasurable  greatness.  The  reflection  in  im- 
agination and  feeling  of  that  fact  is  sufficient  to 
insure  reverence  and  docility  in  his  presence. 
Charles  Lamb  spoke  for  authentic  historic  fact 
when  he  said  to  a  company  of  friends,  "  If 
Shakespere  should  appear  here,  we  should  all 
rise,  but  if  He  should  appear  we  should  all 
kneel." 

II 

Christology  is  a  human  question,  and  its  chief 
form  is  this :  What  is  the  value  of  Jesus  Christ 
for  the  religious  life  of  mankind?  And  the 
basis  for  the  true  answer  to  this  question  is  in 
the  Christian  life.  Discipleship  is  a  process  of 
moral  experimentation.  Historic  discipleship 
is  historic  experimentation  expressing  itself  in 
results  that  gain  in  clearness  and  certainty.  The 
total  power  of  the  cause  is  not  given  in  the  in- 
complete effect ;  still  the  testimony  of  the  effect 
is  positive  and  may  be  prophetic. 

The  first  witness  for  Christ  is  the  psalm  of 
the  individual  disciple.  Hebrew  words  are  filled 
with  the  new  wine  of  Christian  experience,  — 

"  Come,  and  hear,  all  ye  that  fear  God, 
And  I  will  declare  what  he  hath  done  for  my  soul."  1 

This  testimony  strengthens  itself  in  the  larger 
witness  of  history :  Hear  what  the  Lord  has 
done  for  other  souls.  At  this  point  an  important 

1  Psalm  Ixvi  16. 


JESUS    CHRIST  265 

discrimination  is  made.  Christ  has  meant  most 
to  the  greatest  souls.  Paul  and  John,  Origen 
and  Augustine,  Luther  and  Edwards,  Maurice 
and  Bushnell,  Channing  and  Brooks,  surely  were 
among  the  greatest  in  their  religious  endowment. 
The  supreme  significance  of  Christ  to  them  is 
fundamentally  important.  In  this  way,  from 
personal  testimony  to  historical,  from  historical 
witness  to  that  of  the  great  spiritual  leaders  of 
the  modern  world,  the  conclusion  is  reached  that 
Jesus  Christ  has  a  message  for  the  world,  that  he 
himself  is  the  world's  incomparable  spiritual  pos- 
session. Thus  the  believer  arrives  at  his  matured 
conviction,  living  as  he  is  in  the  quest  for  the 
best,  and  in  the  open  competition  of  the  religious 
world. 

The  verdict  of  historic  discipleship  is  thus  the 
basis  upon  which  some  insight  may  be  obtained 
into  Christ's  character.  Other  great  religious 
teachers  have  laid  powerful  hold  upon  human 
life.  In  order  to  exalt  Jesus,  it  is  wholly  un- 
necessary to  degrade  them.  But  for  those  who 
hold  that  life  is  good,  that  moral  achievement  is 
the  great  note  of  normal  man,  that  human  rela- 
tions —  domestic,  social,  national,  and  racial  — 
are  the  enduring  and  precious  organism  of  exist- 
ence, that  under  all,  and  in  all,  and  over  all  is 
the  love  of  God  with  whose  conscience  arid  heart 
our  entire  humanity  is  forever  implicated,  there 


266  THE  RELIGIOUS   ULTIMATE 

can  be  no  teacher  like  Jesus  Christ.  For  him 
life  is  good.  For  him  the  relational  life  of  man- 
kind is  existence.  Society  illumined  and  inspired 
by  love  is  his  conception  of  normal  human  ex- 
istence. For  him  there  is  the  coming  of  the 
Infinite  holiness  and  joy  into  society.  Our  hu- 
man world,  in  his  sight,  is  vast,  precious,  full  of 
illimitable  promise.  He  lives,  he  dies,  that  his 
kingdom  may  come ;  and  his  kingdom  is  conser- 
vative of  human  life,  it  retains  all  by  purifying 
and  perfecting  all.  According  to  Jesus  the  sub- 
stance of  existence  is  divine  ;  his  aim  is  to  redeem 
it  from  abuse,  and  to  fill  it  with  the  grace  that 
consecrates  and  completes  it.  The  Buddhist 
pleads  for  the  holy  life ;  but  with  him  existence 
is  misery,  and  his  ideal  is  the  beatitude  of  ex- 
tinction. Paralysis  is  upon  the  heart  of  Indian 
civilization.  Social  progress  is  no  part  of  Indian 
experience,  no  part  of  Indian  dreams.  Science 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  word  there  is  none. 
Among  the  Hindus,  effective  social  organization 
there  is  none ;  universal  education  there  is  none ; 
the  achievements  in  science,  in  philosophy,  in 
government,  in  institutional  life  that  distinguish 
the  west,  are  not  found  in  the  east.  Profound 
and  disordered  metaphysical  dreamings  consti- 
tute those  huge  systems  of  opinion.  Imagina- 
tion takes  the  place  of  intellect,  prejudice  of 
conscience,  endless  brooding  of  will.  The  touch 


JESUS    CHRIST  267 

of  peculiar  climate  is  in  all  this;  the  deeper 
influence  of  immemorial  pessimism  is  also  in  it 
all.  So  long  as  the  ideal  is  extinction  of  being 
by  the  path  of  holiness,  Jesus  Christ  must  seem 
inferior  to  their  own  great  teacher ;  but  we  who 
hold  that  this  ideal  is  false,  who  set  up  as  our 
goal  life  in  the  path  of  service  inspired  by  love, 
must  place  our  Master  immeasurably  above  the 
best. 

The  supremacy  of  Jesus  among  the  religious 
teachers  of  mankind  rests  upon  the  verdict  of 
life.  One  can  predict  the  universal  and  final 
rejection  of  Christianity  only  as  one  shall  fore- 
cast the  universal  and  final  denial  of  the  will 
to  live.  Universal  and  permanent  pessimism 
alone  can  succeed  in  relegating  the  Gospel  of 
Christ  to  an  inferior  position.  Because  the  de- 
sire for  life  is  deep  and  ineradicable,  because  it 
prevails  more  and  more  wherever  existence  is 
normal,  Christianity  is  bound  to  become  the  re- 
ligion of  the  world.  Victorious  and  passion- 
ately aspiring  life  can  never  rest  long  under  the 
shadow  of  a  pessimistic  gospel.  The  leader  for 
an  achieving  humanity  is  he  who  came  to  give 
the  more  abundant  life.  No  teacher  so  identi- 
fies his  cause  with  life  as  Jesus  does.  As  healer, 
as  prophet,  as  personal  influence,  as  man  of  faith 
and  of  works,  his  whole  power  is  directed  upon 
human  society  to  turn  it  into  a  vast  and  vital 


268  THE  RELIGIOUS   ULTIMATE 

joy.  Upon  a  theistic  interpretation  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  an  optimistic  view  of  history,  Jesus 
is  the  incomparable  religious  leader.  Wherever 
the  instinct  of  life  is  imprisoned,  there  he  is  con- 
fessed as  the  supreme  deliverer;  wherever  the 
desire  for  life  prevails,  there  the  Master  of  the 
Christian  world  is  recognized  as  rightful  king ; 
and  if  humanity  as  a  whole  shall  rise  into  the 
passion  for  the  highest  kind  of  life,  we  may  be 
sure  that  humanity  will  choose  as  its  Lord,  Jesus 
Christ.  For  the  race  that  wants  to  live,  there 
is  among  religious  teachers  no  rival  to  him. 

The  power  to  renew  the  desire  for  life  belongs 
to  Christ  in  a  wholly  incomparable  way.  All 
human  interests  flourish  where  the  Gospel  goes. 
The  disciples  of  Jesus  became  possessed  with 
the  joy  and  the  hope  of  being.  The  good  tid- 
ings were  uttered  from  the  heart  of  exultant 
manhood.  Trial  and  sorrow  became  discipline, 
that  is,  a  severe  process  for  the  expansion  and 
exaltation  of  existence.  The  first  revival  that 
followed  the  presence  of  Jesus  in  Galilee  and  in 
Juda3a  was  a  revival  of  the  desire  to  live.  The 
surprise  of  being  was  the  great  primal  inspira- 
tion that  came  from  him.  Men  paused  and 
wondered  over  the  reversal  of  despair.  In  his 
presence  the  contempt  of  life  died  out ;  the  sigh 
of  distress  for  relief  in  death  was  abolished. 
The  hum  of  human  interests  became  universal ; 


JESUS  CHBIST  269 

men  forgot  their  unbelief  in  the  new  and  absorb- 
ing passion  for  life  with  which  Jesus  filled  the 
land.  The  crowds  of  sick  that  were  brought 
to  him,  the  multitudes  that  followed  that  they 
might  hear  him  speak,  the  parents  who  sought 
him  for  their  sons  and  daughters,  and  the  mas- 
ters who  plead  with  him  in  behalf  of  their  ser- 
vants, the  mothers  who  prayed  for  his  blessing 
upon  their  children,  and  the  rulers,  like  Nico- 
demus,  who  were  fascinated  into  discipleship,  all 
tell  the  same  story.  Life  can  become  a  new 
and  an  amazing  interest,  and  Jesus  was  the 
great  inspirer  of  the  prophetic  passion.  The 
contempt  of  existence  has  never  been  able  to 
live  where  Christ  lives.  Wherever  he  has  gone 
he  has  filled  his  disciples  with  the  surprise  of 
being.  The  angel  that  men  entertain  unawares 
is  their  humanity.  Wordsworth  speaks  for  the 
whole  brotherhood  of  believers  when  he  sings  :  — 

"  Thanks  to  the  human  heart  by  which  we  live." 

The  normal  interests  of  man,  inspired  and  sus- 
tained by  Jesus  Christ,  are  the  greatest  forces 
in  the  world,  and  they  are  its  inalienable  joys. 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  said  that  the  ministry 
should  be  a  band  of  music.  Deeper  still  is  the 
power  of  the  Gospel.  It  creates  a  concert  in 
the  human  heart  that  never  ceases,  that  takes 
up  into  itself  the  whole  pathos  of  existence  and 


270  THE  RELIGIOUS   ULTIMATE 

blends  it  with  the  governing  voices  of  joy,  mak- 
ing them  softer  and  richer,  making  it  a  solace 
and  sanctity. 

The  Christian  assurance  of  endless  life  is  a 
testimony  to  the  unique  power  of  Christ.  Nor- 
mal life  doubtless  desires  to  go  on,  and  it  natu- 
rally builds  heavens  into  which  it  is  to  enter 
at  death.  But  nowhere  is  the  strength  of  the 
desire  for  endless  existence  so  tremendous  as  in 
the  Christian  community.  Life  is  love,  and  love 
is  full  of  joy,  and  not  to  long  with  utmost  sin- 
cerity and  intensity  for  permanence  would  be 
an  incredible  mood.  Christ  has  made  being  so 
full  of  surprise  and  joy  and  hope  that  the  gen- 
erations under  him  have  eagerly  accepted  his 
assurance  of  life  after  death.  Whether  the 
conception  of  immortality  be  valid  or  not,  the 
consonance  of  it  with  the  human  heart,  as  that 
heart  is  touched  and  stirred  by  Christ,  is  a  new 
witness  to  the  Master's  power  to  make  existence 
supremely  desirable.  And  while  he  thus  appeals 
to  the  desire  for  life,  renews  it  where  it  has 
failed,  and  fills  it  with  an  endless  ideal  and 
hope,  it  must  be  repeated  that  the  verdict  of 
life  is  a  verdict  for  the  sovereign  and  incom- 
parable worth  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  religious 
leader  of  mankind.  The  exalted  genius  of 
Buddha  avails  nothing  in  his  competition  with 
Jesus.  We  place  these  teachers  side  by  side. 


JESUS  CHRIST  271 

We  hear  Buddha  say  that  existence  is  desire, 
that  desire  is  egoism,  that  egoism  is  misery,  and 
that  the  highest  hope  of  man  is  the  hope  of 
extinction.  The  noble  ethical  discipline  that 
becomes  the  only  path  to  the  peace  of  nothing- 
ness must  be  estimated  in  the  presence  of  the 
goal  to  which  it  is  adjusted,  in  the  presence  also 
of  the  universe  which  makes  this  goal  the  high- 
est human  beatitude.  We  hear  Buddha  speak, 
and  the  whole  life  of  our  world  is  against  him. 
He  is  exalted,  he  is  gracious,  he  is  full  of  inde- 
scribable pity,  he  is  benign  ;  but  he  is,  from  our 
point  of  view,  the  victim  of  an  immeasurable 
and  a  hideous  mistake.  We  hear  Jesus  say  that 
existence  is  desire,  that  desire  is  ordained  of 
God  to  become  love,  that  love  is  pure  and  glori- 
ous joy,  and  that  his  mission  is  to  fill  humanity 
with  love  that  it  may  be  filled  with  worth  and 
joy.  Here  our  world  is  with  Jesus.  All  be- 
lievers in  life,  all  reformers  of  life,  all  idealists 
for  life,  and  the  whole  soul  of  our  civilization, 
side  with  Jesus.  And  once  more  it  must  be 
said  that  for  the  world  that  wants  to  live,  to 
live  worthily,  royally,  and  endlessly  there  is  no 
rival  in  leadership  to  Jesus  Christ. 

m 

The  verdict  of  Jesus  Christ  concerning  him- 
self  is  of   chief   importance.     A  complete   in- 


272  THE  EELIGIOUS  ULTIMATE 

duction  is  not  here  in  place ;  a  single  typical 
instance  is  sufficient.  Jesus  says  of  himself  "  1 
am  the  light  of  the  world." 1  In  the  simplest 
and  at  the  same  time  the  most  unmistakable 
way,  these  words  set  forth  his  claim  to  be  the 
religious  ultimate  for  mankind.  As  the  new 
Jerusalem  has  twelve  gates  opening  into  its 
interior  splendor  so  there  are  many  approaches 
to  the  soul  of  Christ.  He  is  the  bread  of 
heaven,  the  water  of  life,  the  resurrection  and 
the  life,  the  good  shepherd,  the  vine,  the  way, 
the  truth,  and  the  life,  the  son  of  man,  and  the 
son  of  God.  These  self-characterizations,  and 
others  like  them  that  might  be  named,  are 
avenues  to  the  vision  of  the  Master's  spirit. 
But  the  comparison  of  himself  to  the  light  is 
perhaps  the  most  significant ;  at  least,  in  this 
discussion,  it  is  the  most  convenient.  And  the 
first  thought  implied  in  the  comparison  is  the 
immense  practicalness  of  the  Gospel.  The  light 
is  for  sight  and  service.  It  brings  into  clear- 
ness the  abiding  order  of  the  material  world, 
and  it  animates  man  to  his  task  in  that  world. 
Light  presupposes  reality ;  its  primary  func- 
tion is  revelation  and  inspiration.  Christianity 
assumes  the  independent  reality  of  God's  moral 
world  in  humanity.  It  implies  that  that  world 
is  from  of  old,  and  that  it  is  everlasting.  Its 

1  John  viii.  12. 


JESUS  CHRIST  273 

first  office  is  to  make  it  visible,  and  to  induce 
men  to  live  in  it.  The  moral  world  that  is  the 
analogue  of  the  material,  it  covers  with  its  illu- 
mination, and  cultivates  with  its  inspiration. 
Christianity  is  preeminently  a  religion  for  this 
world;  above  all  it  is  a  religion  for  business. 
It  is  primarily  for  seeing  and  serving.  In  it 
man  first  finds  himself.  The  appetites  and  pas- 
sions and  reason  and  conscience  and  will  that 
compose  man's  life  are  organized  in  truth.  The 
magnitude  and  value  of  the  soul,  the  family,  the 
nation,  history,  and  humanity  discover  them- 
selves here  as  nowhere  else.  The  material, 
domestic,  social,  political,  scientific,  and  human 
interests  of  the  race  shine  as  different  aspects  of 
one  vast  whole.  That  whole  is  our  human  world, 
and  that  human  world  is  a  moral  world.  And 
from  the  Gospel  a  tide  of  light  passes  over  the 
face  of  society,  and  a  new  motive  goes  into  the 
higher  endeavor  of  man.  The  true  perspective 
of  existence  and  the  cunning  hand  of  the  artist 
are  the  gift  of  Christianity.  The  light  that 
reveals  the  reality  of  the  world,  in  which  men 
plough  and  sow  and  reap  and  carry  on  the  thou- 
sand activities  of  existence  ;  the  light  that  when 
it  is  present  puts  out  every  other,  and  that  when 
it  is  absent  is  still  the  standard  and  incitement 
for  the  invention  of  substitutes,  is  the  great 
parable  for  the  revealing  and  inspiring  function 


274  THE  RELIGIOUS  ULTIMATE 

of  Christ.  To  withdraw  from  the  higher  en- 
deavor of  mankind  the  influence  of  the  Gospel 
would  be  like  a  final  sunset.  The  moral  world 
would  still  be  here,  but  it  would  be  without  its 
Divine  interpreter.  Outside  of  Christianity  the 
moral  order  is  a  world  in  darkness;  and  that 
means  blindness  and  stupidity.  The  vision  and 
the  service  that  mean  life  for  mankind  are  in  a 
pathetic  sense  limited  to  Christendom.  Man 
is  seen,  appreciated,  understood,  inspired,  and 
served  only  in  the  luminous  atmosphere  of  Chris- 
tian truth  and  love.  To  lose  the  memory  of  the 
Gospel  would  be  to  forget  the  true  aspect  of 
society,  and  the  inspiration  by  which  it  is  gen- 
uinely served. 

From  Christianity  as  the  divine  condition  of 
moral  industry,  it  follows  that  in  the  life  of  the 
world  it  is  both  conscious  and  unconscious.  It 
is  the  master  light  of  all  our  seeing ;  yet  reve- 
lation and  inspiration  are  often  lost  in  the  order 
discovered  and  the  impulse  to  serve  it.  The 
thoughts  and  feelings  and  purposes  that  make 
possible  the  best  life  of  mankind  are  rarely 
traced  to  their  true  source.  The  spiritual  out- 
fit for  service  is  simply  accepted  ;  it  is  here  as 
the  light  is  here ;  and  as  the  farmer  follows  his 
plough,  and  the  sailor  steers  his  ship  unconscious 
of  the  illumination  that  conditions  the  effort,  so 
men  work  in  the  sphere  of  the  spirit.  The  im- 


JESUS  CHRIST  275 

mense  moral  health  of  mankind,  and  the  amaz- 
ing moral  service  from  man  to  man  that  every 
day  records  are  the  witnesses  to  a  mighty  uncon- 
scious Christianity.  Once  for  all  a  large  section 
of  human  interest  lies  in  the  light  of  the  Gospel. 
Men  think  of  themselves  and  of  their  fellow- 
men  under  the  power  of  Christian  inheritance 
and  environment.  It  is  the  old  phenomenon  re- 
peated upon  a  grander  scale.  "  Surely  the  Lord 
is  in  this  place ;  and  I  knew  it  not." J  The 
integrity  of  the  world  is  yet  in  its  instinctive 
stage ;  and  the  best  lives  are  far  from  self-com- 
prehending. They  move  in  forces  of  whose 
scope  and  character  and  origin  they  take  but 
slight  account.  To  the  Christian  morality  of 
the  world  there  is  an  unconscious  side.  Men 
cast  out  demons  by  the  power  that  they  do  not 
trace  to  its  source.  The  failure  in  faith  of  the 
man  who  is  a  hero  in  duty  should  be  the  com- 
monplace that  it  is.  He  is  simply  the  busy 
farmer  who  never  sees  the  light  in  which  he 
works.  The  Christian  thinker  should  be  the 
broadest  and  most  hopeful.  The  man  to  whom 
Christ  is  the  light  of  the  world  should  set  great 
store  upon  the  moral  industry  that  Christ  makes 
possible,  and  little  upon  verbal  or  even  scientific 
admiration.  The  believer  cannot  be  too  thank- 
ful for  the  multitudes  who  in  a  real  way  do 
Christ's  will  "  and  know  it  not." 

1  Genesis  xxviii.  16. 


276  THE  RELIGIOUS  ULTIMATE 

However,  it  is  but  natural  that  consciousness 
should  gain  upon  unconsciousness,  reflection 
upon  instinct,  a  reasoned  faith  upon  an  intuitive. 
The  light  passes  through  crises.  Daybreak 
and  sundown  are  such,  and  the  beginning  and 
the  end  of  Christian  discipleship  are  usually 
marked  epochs.  Sad  sometimes  they  are,  like 
Kipling's  dawn  of  thunder,  mournful  as  the 
wreck  of  day  at  its  close ;  yet  for  the  multitude 
of  devout  disciples  the  beginning  is  the  blush  of 
the  Infinite  and  the  end  a  banner  of  fire.  The 
crises  through  which  Christian  discipleship  passes 
serve  to  arrest  its  thought  and  send  it  upward 
to  the  source  of  its  insight  and  love.  Character 
in  the  making  is  a  constant  crisis.  The  more 
will  there  is  in  the  moral  process,  the  more  sense 
is  there  of  friend  and  foe.  The  point  of  deliber- 
ate and  forced  moral  gain  is  a  kind  of  Niagara. 
The  roar  is  perpetual,  the  conflict  unceasing, 
the  phenomenon  something  whose  grandeur  and 
momentousness  custom  can  in  no  wise  lessen. 
The  strong  temptation,  the  perplexing  task,  the 
growing  need  of  vision  and  motive,  the  sense  of 
dissatisfaction  with  the  work  done,  the  adverse 
judgment  upon  life,  the  new  tide  of  aspiration, 
the  sorrow  and  the  hope,  are  the  crises  in  the 
day  of  the  Lord  which  awakens  thought  and 
turns  the  eager  mind  full  upon  the  great  Master. 

Next  to  the  practicalness  of  Christianity  is 


JESUS  CHRIST  277 

the  beauty  of  it.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  its 
truth,  no  one  can  deny  the  beauty  of  Christ's 
thought  of  God  and  man,  human  fellowship  here 
and  hereafter.  The  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  is 
the  sovereign  aesthetic  wonder.  The  student  of 
ordinary  sensibility  is  arrested  at  every  step  by 
the  scenery.  The  range  of  the  insight  is  no 
more  remarkable  than  the  quality.  The  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  has  the  beauty  of  truth.  The 
ethical  seeds  from  the  Old  Testament  become 
under  Christ's  touch  a  world  of  full-grown  and 
finished  loveliness.  Morality  ceases  to  be  me- 
chanical, ceases  even  to  be  stern ;  it  sinks  into 
divine  depths  and  soars  away  to  infinite  heights. 
It  becomes  as  great  and  beautiful  as  the  life  of 
God.  This  unlimitedness  and  perfection  of  the 
moral  life  as  conceived  by  Christ,  especially  in 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  is  an  unspeakable 
appeal  to  the  sense  of  beauty.  The  Parables 
continue  this  appeal.  They  are  beautiful  forms 
for  the  world's  most  beautiful  thought.  God  as 
Jesus  thought  of  him  is  a  being  of  overwhelm- 
ing beauty.  There  is  no  image  anywhere  for 
this  splendor  of  the  mind  of  Christ.  Nothing 
in  the  extant  intellectual  or  spiritual  possessions 
of  mankind  can  match  the  idea  of  the  God  and 
Father  of  Jesus  Christ.  Probably  the  best  of 
that  thought  is  still  beyond  the  deepest  and  most 
sympathetic  study.  One  can  only  dream  of 


278  THE  RELIGIOUS  ULTIMATE 

what  it  would  be  to  entertain  Christ's  vision  of 
the  Infinite.  The  symbols  are  here,  the  Greek 
characters  and  sentences,  the  Gospels  surrounded 
by  the  best  learning  of  the  world.  And  under 
these  symbols,  like  a  divine  presence,  waits  the 
vision  of  God  and  of  man,  out  of  which  came 
the  Christian  religion. 

Christ  himself  is  the  chief  part  of  his  gospel. 
Again  in  the  category  of  beauty  everything 
ranks  below  Christ.  The  ineffable  loveliness  is 
the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  From  ad- 
vent to  ascension,  in  act  and  thought,  in  public 
ministry  and  in  private  fellowship,  from  the  be- 
ginning to  the  end  there  is  the  same  surpassing 
beauty  of  character.  And  as  those  who  work 
in  the  light  come  to  see  and  to  love  it,  as  light 
becomes  not  only  the  indispensable  condition  of 
industry  but  an  open  fountain  of  joy,  so  the 
world  that  is  learning  to  think  of  itself  in  the 
glory  of  Christ  is  more  and  more  coming  to  dis- 
cern the  revealing  splendor  and  to  rejoice  in  it. 
If  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  in  his  use  of  light 
as  the  comparison  for  his  life,  Jesus  thought 
first  of  the  indispensable  utility  of  his  religion, 
it  is  equally  certain  that  next  to  that  he  must 
have  placed  its  ministry  to  the  sense  of  beauty. 
The  moral  refinement  of  Christianity  at  its  best, 
compared  with  Stoicism  at  its  best,  has  its  ex- 
planation here.  Refinement  is  a  constant  note 


JESUS  CHRIST  279 

in  genuine  Christianity.  The  vision  of  Christ 
is  ultimately  incomparable  with  brutality.  The 
little  child  is  again  in  the  midst  of  society,  and 
the  truth  and  delicacy  of  feeling  in  it  are  a  sym- 
bol of  that  which  is  inseparable  from  the  sub- 
stance of  the  Gospel.  Fatherhood  and  mother- 
hood, human  nature  and  its  great  forces,  have 
been  immensely  modified  by  the  grace  of  Christ. 
To  the  condition  of  the  world's  best  work  we 
must  add,  when  we  think  of  Christ,  the  source 
of  its  grace.  If  Christianity  is  supreme  for  its 
utility,  it  is  again  supreme  for  its  aesthetic 
value. 

The  finality  of  the  Gospel  grows  out  of  Christ's 
comparison.  For  its  own  purpose  there  is  no- 
thing better  than  light.  Light  at  its  best  is  the 
final  thing  in  that  line.  One  can  ask  for  nothing 
other,  for  nothing  higher,  for  nothing  more. 
The  world  rolling  in  the  flood  of  light  is  in  that 
aspect  of  it  absolutely  perfect.  And  beyond  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  thought  cannot  go.  A  God 
better  than  the  Father  of  Christ  is  for  man  in- 
conceivable. A  diviner  interpretation  of  human 
existence  than  that  of  Christ  is  unimaginable. 
The  great  ideas  of  Christ  —  the  kingdom  of 
God,  eternal  life,  the  universe  as  essentially 
moral,  truth  as  ultimately  personal  in  man,  in 
Christ  himself,  and  in  God,  —  represent  not 
only  the  highest  reach  of  spiritual  intelligence, 


280  THE  RELIGIOUS   ULTIMATE 

but  also  the  height  that  has  no  beyond.  Any- 
thing better  than  the  Gospel  is  simply  incon- 
ceivable. A  higher  or  greater  spirit  than  Jesus 
Christ  is  unthinkable.  It  is  no  unimportant 
service  of  the  higher  criticism  that  it  has  made 
possible  the  discovery  of  the  immeasurable  im- 
provement that  Christ  was  upon  Hebrew  ideal- 
ism. Until  the  present  generation  the  Messianic 
prophecies  in  the  Old  Testament  were  filled  with 
a  Christian  content ;  and  it  was  supposed  that 
the  greater  prophets  had  definite  conceptions 
of  Jesus,  and  that  six  or  seven  hundred  years 
before  his  birth  they  supplied  the  world  with 
an  outline  biography  of  him.  It  is  now  seen, 
or  at  least  it  is  now  possible  to  see,  the  infinite 
surprise  that  Jesus  was  to  his  people.  Hebrew 
idealism  points  toward  him ;  he  is  its  consum- 
mate expression ;  but  he  is  beyond  the  fair  in- 
terpretation of  its  utmost  dream.  His  kingdom 
is  other  and  infinitely  greater  than  the  kingdom 
of  the  prophets,  than  the  kingdom  of  John  the 
Baptist.  In  teaching  and  in  character  Christ 
is  the  highest  word  and  the  best  act  of  God  to 
man.  Christ  is  the  best  conceivably  that  man 
can  be  ;  the  best  that  God  can  do  in  man.  He 
is,  therefore,  at  once  the  highest  revelation  of 
God,  and  the  sovereign  example  for  man. 


JESUS  CHRIST  281 

IV 

The  value  of  Christ  for  the  world  may  be  said 
to  consist  in  the  perfection  of  his  religious  con- 
sciousness. The  consciousness  of  Christ  is  a 
phrase  in  current  use,  and  it  is  an  inevitable 
phrase.  It  is,  nevertheless,  somewhat  ambig- 
uous. It  may  mean  the  believer's  sense  of  his 
Master's  presence,  as  in  fulfillment  of  the  pro- 
mise "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the 
end  of  the  world !  " 1  Here  it  signifies  Christ  as 
he  is  wrought  into  the  thought  and  feeling  of  the 
disciple ;  it  stands  for  the  consciousness  of  the 
Christian.  And  it  is  needless  to  say  that  this 
is  a  profoundly  important  meaning  of  the  words. 
The  translatableness  of  the  mind  of  the  Master 
into  the  mind  of  the  disciple  is  a  cardinal  truth 
of  Christian  faith.  The  Christian  consciousness 
is  modeled  on  the  consciousness  of  Jesus  Christ ; 
it  aims  at  the  reproduction  in  living  men  of  the 
spiritual  distinction  of  Jesus ;  its  ideal  is  the 
continuous  and  ever  ascending  repetition  of 
the  faith  and  love  of  the  Lord.  The  writings 
of  the  New  Testament  are  full  of  the  witness 
to  this  continuous  and  increasing  presence  of 
Christ  in  the  consciousness  of  his  disciples. 
Christ  is  born  within  them  the  hope  of  glory. 
There  is  an  identification  between  Master  and 
1  Matthew  will.  20. 


282  THE  RELIGIOUS   ULTIMATE 

servant  as  in  the  vine  and  the  branches.  Be- 
lievers die  with  him  in  his  death,  and  they  rise 
with  him  in  his  resurrection.  This  transfigura- 
tion of  mental  being  in  the  radiance  of  the 
Lord's  presence,  this  transfusion  of  the  soul  of 
Christ  through  the  soul  of  the  Christian,  is  one 
of  the  great  notes  of  apostolic  literature.  And 
it  does  not  end  with  the  apostolic  age.  Mystic 
literature  is  never  absent,  and  it  testifies  to  the 
same  high  experience.  The  early  hymns  and 
prayers,  passages  in  the  "  Confessions  "  of  Augus- 
tine, the  "  Imitation  of  Christ,"  the  sermons  of 
Tauler,  Luther's  joy  in  the  idea  of  justification 
by  faith,  much  of  the  "  Religious  Affections  "  of 
Edwards,  much  in  the  writings  of  F.  D.  Maurice, 
and  a  constant  note  in  all  genuine  Christian 
experience  attest  the  fundamental  and  perma- 
nent character  of  the  claim  that  the  mind  of 
Christ  is  reproducible  in  the  mind  of  his  sincere 
and  devout  disciple. 

Indeed  this  view  of  the  consciousness  of  Christ 
is  primary.  Unless  the  mind  of  Christ  is  essen- 
tially translatable  into  human  thought,  it  be- 
comes inaccessible  ;  a  reality  it  may  be,  but  a 
reality  beyond  all  possible  experience  and  for- 
ever unknowable.  But  to  contend  that  nature 
is  knowable  only  as  it  is  translated  into  human 
thought  does  not  make  nature  merely  subjective. 
Nature  is  known  through  the  social  conscious- 


JESUS  CHRIST  283 

ness,  through  the  historic  consciousness  of  man, 
and  yet  nature  is  other  and  more  than  that 
consciousness.  It  is  the  object  of  experience, 
present  in  human  experience  and  yet  regula- 
tive of  it,  and  going  infinitely  beyond  it.  It 
is  known ;  it  is  knowable ;  and  still  it  is  for- 
ever ahead  of  knowledge.  It  is  the  Infinite 
approaching  the  mind  of  the  race  through  the 
senses,  intelligible  through  and  through,  and  at 
the  same  time,  for  the  human  intellect,  forever 
unexhausted  and  inexhaustible.  To  contend  that 
the  consciousness  belonging  to  Jesus  Christ  is 
knowable  is  not  to  make  it  wholly  subjective ; 
it  is  not  to  identify  it  with  the  consciousness 
belonging  to  Christian  men  of  any  generation 
or  of  all  the  generations.  The  Christian  con- 
sciousness is  created  and  sustained  by  Christ ; 
it  is  the  continuous  witness  for  his  permanent 
presence  in  human  society.  But  while  known 
through  the  consciousness  of  his  disciples  the 
consciousness  belonging  to  the  Lord  is  other 
and  infinitely  greater  than  that  belonging  to  his 
people.  Of  their  mind  his  is  the  basis,  of  their 
vision  his  soul  is  object ;  he  compels  attention, 
as  nature  does,  by  the  variety  and  the  inces- 
sancy  of  his  appeal ;  his  ineffable  mental  content 
creates  and  orders  and  commands  the  mental 
content  of  those  who  follow  him. 

The  consciousness  of  Christ  is  thus  the  sever- 


284  THE  RELIGIOUS  ULTIMATE 

eign  object  of  Christian  thought.  It  means  the 
content  of  the  soul  of  Jesus  Christ  in  its  relation 
to  his  Father  and  in  relation  to  man  individual 
and  social.  To  recover  the  vision  that  lived  in 
that  supreme  spirit  is  the  highest  aim  of  man. 
To  enter  the  sacred  circle  of  light,  and  to  read 
there  the  meaning  of  the  universe  and  the  value 
of  human  life  is  the  ideal  of  the  church  at  its 
best.  The  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing 
but  the  truth  lies  there.  There  faith  lives  in 
its  highest  form,  ethical  insight  is  there  thorough 
and  sovereign,  humanity  within  that  domain  is 
true  to  the  God  who  made  it,  and  to  the  race 
of  which  it  is  the  great  expression.  The  man 
Christ  Jesus  is  the  mirror  of  the  God  who  is, 
and  the  type  and  prophecy  of  the  race  that  shall 
be.  That  all  faith  and  all  life  should  come  to 
judgment  here  is  inevitable ;  but  this  is  not  now 
the  issue.  That  theology  and  conduct  should 
be  ultimately  amenable  to  the  mind  of  Christ 
is  indisputable.  The  revolution  that  is  under 
way  hi  theology  is  due  to  the  arraignment  of 
the  historic  systems  at  the  judgment  seat 
of  Christ.  If  they  perish  it  is  because  of  his 
sentence  upon  them;  if  they  survive,  it  is  owing 
to  his  approval.  Nothing  that  contradicts  his 
spirit  can  forever  go  forward  in  his  name.  The 
incompatibility  between  the  mind  of  Christ 
and  the  mind  of  Augustine  and  Calvin  and 


JESUS  CHRIST  285 

Edwards  explains  the  loss  of  empire  that  has 
befallen  these  great  thinkers.  They  are  facing 
him  who  is  higher  than  the  heavens  ;  they  tried 
to  represent  him ;  in  much  they  succeeded,  and 
in  much  they  failed.  A  new  utterance  is  de- 
manded under  the  compulsion  of  the  judgment 
of  Christ.  This  is  plain,  but  it  is  not  now  the 
point.  The  consciousness  of  Christ  is  the  high- 
est known  to  mankind  ;  the  soul  of  Jesus  and 
its  content  Godward  and  manward  is  without 
a  rival ;  his  vision  and  his  love  are  first,  and 
beside  him  there  is  no  other.  I  cannot  conceive 
of  a  nobler  calling  or  a  worthier  task  than  that 
which  seeks  to  master  something  of  the  vision 
and  love  of  Christ  that  it  may  make  them  the 
vision  and  the  love  of  mankind.  We  have  found 
the  Christ !  that  was  the  shout  of  gladness  that 
rang  from  Andrew  to  Peter,  and  from  Philip 
to  Nathanael.  It  was  the  supreme  discovery  in 
that  age.  It  was  the  perpetual  discovery  of 
those  young  men,  and  their  brethren  on  through 
trial  and  achievement  to  the  end  of  existence. 
It  was  this  increasing  discovery  that  clothed 
them  with  power,  and  that  turned  them  into 
epoch-making  men.  They  had  found  the  su- 
preme human  soul,  and  in  that  discovery  they 
had  a  message  for  mankind.  The  world  waits 
for  the  renewal  of  this  discovery.  Still  the 
Messianic  expectation  lives  in  the  conscious  and 


286  THE  RELIGIOUS   ULTIMATE 

unconscious  longing  to  look  upon  a  great  soul. 
Still  the  calling  is  supreme  that  finds  the  divine 
soul,  and  that  carries  something  of  its  vision  and 
love  into  the  heart  of  the  waiting  world. 

But  how  can  we  reach  to-day  the  conscious- 
ness belonging  to  Jesus  Christ  ?  Where  is  his 
dwelling,  and  where  are  the  windows  through 
which  we  may  look  in  upon  the  king  in  his 
beauty  ?  Perhaps  an  example  will  be  the  best 
guide  in  answering  this  profound  and  difficult 
question.  Paul  said :  "  We  have  the  mind  of 
Christ."  How  did  he  reach  his  great  posses- 
sion ?  He  doubtless  knew,  in  a  distorted  way, 
from  the  outset  of  his  career  the  story  after- 
wards embodied  in  the  Gospels.  That  of  itself, 
however,  did  him  no  good.  Upon  this  know- 
ledge, and  as  the  issue,  doubtless,  of  serious 
questioning  and  much  discipline  there  followed 
the  new  mood  into  which  his  conversion  brought 
him.  However  we  view  the  experience  of  Paul 
on  his  way  to  Damascus  it  was  but  the  bare  be- 
ginning of  his  Christian  career.  His  account 
of  that  experience  assures  us  that  he  saw  Jesus, 
and  that  he  received  certain  commands  from 
him.  But  nothing  is  said  that  would  lead  one 
to  believe  that  Jesus  in  this  appearance  to  Paul 
recited  to  him  the  evangelical  history,  or  that 
he  gave  to  his  new  disciple  a  full  and  adequate 
interpretation  of  that  history.  His  conversion 


JESUS  cmtiST  287 

left  Paul  with  the  conviction  that  Jesus  was 
alive,  with  certain  definite  directions  from  the 
unseen  Lord,  and  with  new  sympathies  and 
hopes.  At  this  point  he  could  not  have  said : 
"  We  have  the  mind  of  Christ." 

Doubtless  Paul  obtained,  in  the  natural  way, 
a  full  and  accurate  account  of  the  public  min- 
istry of  Jesus.  His  repeated  assertions  that  his 
gospel  was  not  derived  from  the  other  apostles, 
but  that  it  was  received  directly  from  the  Lord, 
do  not  contradict  this  position.  Paul's  gospel 
does  not  consist  in  facts,  but  hi  the  interpreta- 
tion of  facts.  His  insight  into  the  career  of 
Jesus  was  the  original  thing  in  Paul's  ministry ; 
his  message,  gathered  out  of  the  common  posses- 
sion of  fact,  was  his  great  distinction.  But 
to  this  full  and  accurate  knowledge  of  Jesus 
obtained  in  a  natural  way  Paul  now  brought 
new  sympathies,  fresh  purposes,  inspired  insight. 
The  evangelical  story  now  became  to  Paul  a  mar- 
velous symbol.  By  profound  and  eager  medi- 
tation, by  following  Jesus  in  imagination  from 
city  to  city,  by  as  it  were  hearing  him  speak, 
by  watching  him  in  toil  and  in  trial,  among  the 
twelve,  with  the  multitude,  healing  the  sick  and 
lifting  up  the  penitent  and  broken-hearted,  be- 
fore the  chief  priest  and  Pilate,  on  the  cross 
between  the  two  thieves,  and  on  the  morning 
of  the  resurrection  as  in  his  appearance  to  the 


288  THE  RELIGIOUS   ULTIMATE 

disciples  on  their  walk  to  Emmaus,  or  to  Paul 
himself  on  his  way  to  Damascus,  the  apostle  got 
before  his  mind  the  wonderful  symbol,  and  he 
began  to  see  behind  it  the  mind  of  Christ.  Dis- 
torted history,  new  sympathies,  full  and  accurate 
history,  this  subjected  to  profound  appreciation 
and  through  years  of  thought  and  of  service  ; 
such  were  the  steps,  as  it  would  appear,  by 
which  Paul  passed  into  the  vision  of  the  mind 
of  Christ.  To  this  must  be  added,  partly  as 
the  result  of  discipline  in  the  service  of  Jesus, 
the  sense  of  spiritual  companionship  with  him. 
The  unseen  Jesus  thus  continued  to  reveal 
himself  to  his  disciple,  opened  up  his  mind  in 
greater  fullness  to  this  chosen  servant,  and  lifted 
him  to  higher  altitudes  of  vision  and  to  com- 
pleter  assurance  as  his  Master's  interpreter. 
Paul  never  fails  to  distinguish  between  this 
sovereign  objective  intelligence  and  his  own ; 
he  sees  clearly  that  the  Lord's  mind  and  his  are 
two,  and  that  there  is  an  immeasurable  differ- 
ence between  them,  and  yet  the  apostle  becomes 
more  and  more  dominated  by  his  ideal.  He 
subjects  himself  to  Christ  so  devoutly  and  com- 
pletely, and  through  so  many  years  and  so  much 
trial  that  it  comes  to  pass  that  he  does  not  live, 
it  is  Christ  who  lives  in  him  and  speaks  through 
him. 

This  process  is,  in  a  way,  repeated  in  the 


JESUS  CHRIST  289 

experience  of  every  Christian  man.  The  evan- 
gelical history  known  in  an  imperfect  manner, 
and  understood  not  at  all,  perhaps  misunder- 
stood, —  that  is  the  first  step.  Then  there  come, 
through  the  serious  discipline  of  life,  the  new 
sympathies,  the  definite  moral  purpose,  and  the 
clarified  vision.  The  evangelical  history  is  stud- 
ied anew,  with  more  attention,  with  profounder 
interest.  Slowly  the  person  of  Jesus  seems  to 
come  out  of  the  mist,  and  to  stand  behind  his 
words  and  works,  and  back  of  the  whole  series 
of  events  with  which  his  name  is  associated. 
The  Gospel  is  now  a  living  symbol ;  and  under 
it  is  the  living  Lord.  Appreciation,  working 
through  study  of  the  history,  operating  now  by 
the  full  power  of  the  highest  critical  scholar- 
ship, and  again  by  the  force  of  plain  common 
sense,  goes  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  soul  of 
Jesus,  sees  its  content  more  widely  and  clearly, 
looks  upon  it  with  stronger  assurance,  and  be- 
comes conscious  of  it  as  accessible  and  yet  tran- 
scendent, as  a  possession  and  yet  as  the  grand 
objective  of  all  search,  the  unceasing  inspiration 
of  wisdom  and  the  final  home  of  all  authority 
and  peace.  Here  too  when  the  disciple  is  devout 
the  sense  of  spiritual  communion  with  the  Lord 
follows.  Through  the  words  of  prophet  and 
apostle,  through  the  great  words  of  Christ  him- 
self, the  high  dialogue  goes  on  between  the  dis- 


290  THE  RELIGIOUS  ULTIMATE 

ciple  and  his  unseen  Master ;  and  often  through 
his  own  thoughts  and  feelings,  in  outgoings  of 
his  own  soul  and  in  returns  upon  him  of  the 
soul  of  the  Lord,  the  grand  process  of  illumina- 
tion goes  forward.  Thus  through  history  sub- 
jected to  moral  insight,  and  issuing  in  direct 
communion  of  soul  with  the  soul  of  Jesus,  the 
disciple  is  able  to  say :  We  have  the  mind  of 
Christ.  The  history  is  the  symbol ;  the  know- 
ledge of  this  history  is  the  method,  and  here 
there  is  room  for  the  transformation  of  popular 
study  into  scientific;  but  the  power  without 
which  the  mind  of  Christ  can  never  be  reached 
is  moral  sympathy,  spiritual  imagination,  re- 
ligious appreciation.  Where  the  symbol  and 
the  method  and  the  power  exist  there  the  vision 
of  the  soul  of  the  Lord  is  found  the  supreme 
wonder,  the  sublimest  possession. 

V 

A  few  words  will  suffice  upon  the  person  of 
Christ.  Upon  such  a  question  the  openness  to 
misunderstanding  is  great ;  and  the  use  of  words 
is  always  uncertain.  To  me  the  Christological 
tradition  of  the  church  is  unspeakably  precious. 
The  church  is  not  founded  upon  theism,  but 
upon  Christian  theism.  The  testimony  of  the 
creeds  is  impressive  when  one  recalls  the  fact 
that  the  creeds  are  witnesses  to  what  was  vital 


JESUS  CHRIST  291 

in  the  life  of  the  church.  Nothing  can  be  so 
surely  fatal  to  the  pulpit  as  a  meagre  Chris- 
tology.  For  the  preacher  of  Christianity  the 
person  of  its  founder  is  central  and  sovereign. 
He  kindles  love  where  every  other  inspiration 
fails;  he  sustains  enthusiasm  where  without  him 
human  nature  would  break  down  ;  he  commands 
the  homage  of  his  people  through  their  gratitude 
and  their  hope.  Wherever  the  church  has  been 
living  and  mighty  Jesus  Christ  has  been  felt  to 
be  absolutely  indispensable  to  its  faith,  its  love, 
and  its  power.  He  has  thus  identified  himself 
with  his  message.  His  religion  lives  in  his  life 
among  men.  He  stands  in  the  historic  experi- 
ence of  his  disciples  in  a  unique  and  in  an  in- 
separable association  with  God. 

To  me,  thinking  in  profound  sympathy  with 
the  highest  Christological  tradition  of  the  church, 
Jesus  seems  to  be  the  perfect  man.  His  manhood, 
his  perfect  manhood,  is  the  obvious  truth  of  his 
existence.  This  obvious  truth  becomes  the  pre- 
mise from  which  is  elicited  the  divine  meaning 
of  his  career.  Jesus  as  the  perfect  man  is  fitted 
for  unique  moral  union  with  that  in  God  which 
the  Fourth  Gospel  calls  6  Aoyos,  which  Paul  desig- 
nates 6  xp«rrds,  which  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
names  6  wos,  which  the  Nicene  creed  covers  by 
the  same  word.  It  will  be  seen  that  a  social 
conception  of  the  nature  of  God  is  the  logical 


292  THE  RELIGIOUS  ULTIMATE 

precedent  for  the  true  appreciation  of  the  person 
of  Jesus.  Indeed  a  social  conception  of  the 
being  of  God  is  the  logical  precedent  to  the  just 
appreciation  of  mankind.  As  this  general  rela- 
tion of  humanity  to  Deity  will  emerge  for  con- 
sideration in  the  final  chapter  of  this  book,  it 
need  here  detain  us  no  longer.  The  point  now 
calling  for  definite  statement  is  the  unique  asso- 
ciation of  the  life  of  Jesus  with  God  inside  that 
general  association  with  God,  in  which  a  living 
humanity  must  stand.  The  Filial  in  God, 
Eternal  in  his  being,  wrought  into  our  entire 
humanity,  in  consequence  of  which  men  are  men, 
is  hi  perfect  union  with  Jesus.  The  Incarna- 
tion has  its  meaning  in  this  unique  identification 
of  the  soul  of  Jesus  with  the  Eternal  filial  in 
God ;  and  this  unique  identification  is  through 
the  perfect  manhood  of  Jesus.  The  conception 
of  God's  being  for  which  the  Trinity  stands,  as 
we  shall  see  later,  is  the  ground  of  humanity, 
and  the  ground  of  the  unique  meaning  of  the 
life  of  Jesus.  He  is  the  supreme  historic  utter- 
ance of  the  Eternal  Son ;  he  is  in  perfect  moral 
union  with  that  in  God  so  named.  Before  his 
advent  Jesus  was  not ;  but  the  Son  of  God  whose 
perfect  human  expression  he  is,  is  eternal  in  the 
heavens.  The  preexistence  of  Jesus  I  do  not 
find  in  the  teaching  of  the  great  theologians, 
with  the  exception  of  Origen,  and  he  teaches  the 


JESUS  CHRIST  293 

preexistence  of  all  soul.  It  is  not  Jesus  who 
preexists  before  his  advent ;  it  is  the  Logos,  the 
Christ,  the  eternal  Son  who  preexists.  Pre- 
existence concerns  primarily  the  doctrine  of  God, 
and  only  in  a  secondary  sense  the  person  of 
Jesus.  The  position  here  maintained  is  that 
Jesus  the  perfect  man  is  the  sovereign  historic 
expression  of  the  eternal  Son  in  the  bosom  of 
the  Father,  and  that  Jesus  as  perfect  man  is  in 
an  association  with  God  ideal,  unique,  and  un- 
searchable. 

With  the  exception  of  the  idea  of  preexistence, 
this  is  essentially  the  position  of  Origen  on  the 
Incarnation.  In  the  teaching  of  Origen  the  doc- 
trine of  God  is  first,  logically  first.  In  himself 
God  is  eternally  the  Father,  and  the  Son,  and 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Before  all  worlds  God  was 
thus  an  ineffable  society  in  himself.  Souls  were 
then  in  existence  in  that  pre-temporal  world. 
According  to  the  high  use  or  the  abuse  of  free- 
dom they  drew  near  to  God,  or  fell  away  from 
him  into  time.  Among  the  uncounted  multi- 
tude of  souls  in  that  eternal  world  there  was  one 
preeminent  and  perfect  soul.  Between  all  souls 
and  the  Eternal  Son  there  is  kinship;  between 
this  preeminent  and  perfect  soul  there  is  ineffa- 
ble union.  This  preeminent  and  perfect  soul 
became,  in  the  flesh,  Jesus  the  ideal  man,  and  as 
such  Jesus  became  the  sovereign  organ  in  time 
of  the  Eternal  Son  in  the  Godhead. 


294  THE  RELIGIOUS  ULTIMATE 

If  we  ignore  the  idea  of  preexistence  in  this 
scheme,  it  seems  to  me  to  cover  with  remarkable 
adequacy  the  thought  of  this  generation  concern- 
ing Jesus.  The  kinship  between  God  and  man 
is  a  fundamental  position  of  faith  to-day.  It  is 
a  living  and  fruitful  truth.  In  virtue  of  it  we 
are  able  to  discover  in  God  an  eternal  humanity, 
and  in  human  existence  an  infinite  significance. 
It  cannot  be  said  too  often  or  with  too  great 
emphasis  that  there  is  between  God  and  every 
man  an  inseparable  association ;  that  there  is  in 
every  man  a  genuine  incarnation  of  God.  But 
the  obliteration  of  the  possibility  of  distinction 
in  the  association  between  God  and  man  is 
against  the  facts  of  religious  history,  and  it  is 
against  the  facts  in  the  record  of  the  life  of 
Jesus.  His  soul  is  easily  seen  to  be  the  sover- 
eign soul,  the  soul  of  unique  and  unapproach- 
able distinction.  And  this  soul  of  unique  dis- 
tinction has  assigned  to  it  a  unique  vocation. 
That  vocation  is  that  Jesus  serve  as  the  supreme 
organ  of  the  Eternal  Son  in  God.  The  need  of 
this  vocation  on  the  divine  side,  and  on  the 
human,  the  reality  of  this  vocation  in  the  life  of 
Jesus,  and  the  sovereign  distinction  of  Jesus  in 
the  fulfillment  of  his  vocation,  are  positions  that 
belong  together  and  that  support  one  another. 
The  ancient  insights  into  the  monumental  mean- 
ing of  the  life  of  Jesus  must  not  be  allowed  to 


JESUS  CHRIST  295 

fade  from  our  faith ;  they  must  be  kept  and 
adjusted  to  the  modern  insights  into  the  divine 
worth  of  man  as  man  ;  insights  for  which  we  are 
indebted  to  a  new  appreciation  of  Christianity 
in  the  light  of  the  general  progress  of  society. 
And  having  ventured  to  connect  with  my  own 
sense  of  the  meaning  of  the  Incarnation  the 
great  name  of  Origen,  I  will  add  to  this  exposi- 
tion his  concluding  words :  "  The  above,  mean- 
while, are  the  thoughts  which  have  occurred  to 
us,  when  treating  of  subjects  of  such  difficulty 
as  the  incarnation  and  deity  of  Christ.  If  there 
be  any  one,  indeed,  who  can  discover  something 
better,  and  who  can  establish  his  assertions  by 
clearer  proofs  from  holy  Scriptures,  let  his  opin- 
ion be  received  in  preference  to  mine."  l 

The  point  of  chief  moment  is  the  moral  aspect 
of  the  subject.  We  have  in  Jesus  the  highest 
expression  of  the  wisdom  and  love  of  God,  the 
final  single  utterance  of  that  in  the  Infinite 
which  chiefly  concerns  our  race,  —  his  goodness, 
his  pity,  his  perfect  moral  being,  and  our  com- 
plete involvement  with  that  being.  Jesus  is 
thus  the  world's  sovereign  symbol  for  God,  the 
world's  sovereign  assurance  of  God.  As  prophet, 
as  priest,  and  as  king,  God  is  with  him ;  for 
God  he  speaks,  for  God  he  suffers,  for  God  he 
rules.  And  if  humanity  is  ever  to  be  filled  with 

1  Origen,  De  Principiis,  Book  II.  chap.  vi. 


296  THE  RELIGIOUS   ULTIMATE 

the  eternal  harmonies,  it  will  be  because  the 
song  of  good-will  that  brightened  the  heavens 
over  the  manger  in  Bethlehem  is  played  by  the 
power  of  Jesus  Christ  into  all  its  thoughts  and 
sympathies,  into  all  its  achievements  and  hopes. 


CHAPTER 

THE   UNIVERSAL   ULTIMATE:   THE  MORAL  UNI- 
VERSE 


THERE  is  a  broad  distinction  to  be  noted  between 
questions  that  are  interesting,  and  in  a  way 
important,  and  those  that  are  of  fundamental 
moment.  Questions  of  uniform,  of  commissariat, 
of  arms,  of  infantry,  and  of  cavalry,  of  this  plan 
of  campaign  and  that,  are  of  grave  importance ; 
still  they  may  be  answered  in  any  one  of  a 
considerable  number  of  ways,  without  serious 
inconvenience.  But  the  question  of  men  and  of 
a  commander  is  fundamental.  Without  them 
the  campaign  cannot  begin.  Hannibal  might 
have  crossed  the  Alps  into  Italy  by  a  different 
pass ;  his  fifteen  years  of  warfare  in  the  enemy's 
country  involved  a  constant  election  from  an 
indefinite  number  of  possible  modes  of  advance 
and  retreat ;  but  that  Hannibal  himself  should 
be  in  command,  and  that  he  should  have  an 
army  to  command,  are  ultimate  necessities  of  the 
situation.  The  distinction  between  the  second- 
ary issues  in  theology  and  the  primary  is  too 


298  THE  UNIVERSAL   ULTIMATE 

important  to  be  safely  disregarded.  Indeed,  it 
is  of  such  importance  to  genuine  theological 
perspective  that  a  few  words  must  now  be  given 
to  the  illustration  of  it. 

The  question  of  the  sciences  is  confessedly  one 
of  great  interest  and  utility.  The  exact  study  of 
facts  and  the  valid  interpretation  of  them  over 
the  whole  domain  of  nature  may  well  appear  to 
be  an  indispensable  vocation.  There  is  nothing 
but  honor  for  this  calling  among  sensible  men. 
But  even  here  there  is  a  previous  question.  Is 
nature  real?  Is  science  the  study  of  a  real 
world  beyond  man  ?  Is  the  order  impressed  upon 
nature  by  the  mind  of  the  scientific  student,  or 
does  nature  put  her  order  into  a  mind  previously 
empty,  or  do  nature  and  human  intelligence 
meet  as  friends  in  the  name  of  the  law  that  is 
power  without,  and  thought  within  ?  These  are 
questions  that  precede  scientific  study.  They 
are  not  the  puzzles  of  an  unsound  mind.  Science 
is  often  drunk  with  the  vanity  of  her  certainties. 
She  has  said  strange  things  against  faith ;  and 
it  has  been  needful  to  remind  her  that  the  reality 
of  the  ultimate  object  of  her  devotion  is  as  much 
assumed  as  anything  to  which  faith  is  devoted. 
At  any  rate,  science  is  not  the  first  question ; 
before  that,  comes  the  question  of  the  reality  of 
what  we  call  the  outward  world.  The  study  of 
that  question  has  had  not  a  little  to  do  with 


THE  MORAL   UNIVERSE  299 

forcing  scientific  men  to  the  conviction  that  in 
dealing  with  nature  they  are  dealing  with  an 
expression  of  cosmic  mind.  There  are  two  ways 
of  building :  we  may  build  in  dreams  or  we  may 
build  on  reality.  Is  our  scientific  habitation  a 
dream-structure  or  does  it  rest  upon  the  real 
world  ?  Until  that  question  is  answered  science 
is  but  an  Abraham  with  the  knife,  the  wood, 
and  the  altar,  the  mere  implements  of  research, 
full  of  the  hideous  mistake  that  his  child  is 
the  victim  for  the  sacrifice.  Not  until  the 
Patriarch  saw  the  ram  in  the  thicket  did  he 
find  the  fundamental  thing ;  and  the  reality  of 
nature  is  to  the  scientific  devotee  the  ram  in  the 
thicket.  Be  sure  of  the  implements,  take  care 
that  the  wood  and  the  altar  are  ready,  and  that 
the  knife  is  sharp ;  but  before  all  lay  hold  of 
the  ram.  Is  nature  real?  That  question  is 
fundamental. 

Man  is  the  subject  of  immensely  varied  and 
fruitful  discussion.  And  yet  one  hears  serious 
voices  proclaiming  the  fact  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  human  personality.  To  proceed  with 
the  discussion  while  there  is  serious  doubt  about 
the  reality  of  the  subject  of  it  is  surely  vain. 
Anthropology  assumes  the  reality  of  man.  It 
is  the  prior  question  to  all  inquiry  directed  upon 
human  life.  As  a  separate  chapter  has  been 
given  to  it,  nothing  need  here  be  added  other 


300  THE  UNIVERSAL  ULTIMATE 

than  the  bare  statement  that  it  is  fundamental 
to  all  thought  upon  things  human.  Here  is  a 
case  surely  where  one  should  not  count  one's 
chickens  until  they  are  hatched.  Said  a  gentle- 
man to  his  cook,  What  is  the  first  requisite  for 
hare  soup  ?  The  answer  was,  First  catch  your 
hare.  Before  you  dress  man,  and  present  him 
for  the  edification  of  your  hearers,  make  sure 
that  you  have  caught  him. 

An  example  of  the  chastening  influence  of  a 
great  primary  question  is  found  in  the  subject 
of  human  immortality.  Look  into  the  older 
books  upon  Eschatology,  and  how  confident  you 
find  them  about  the  details  of  heaven  and  hell, 
especially  of  hell.  It  is  only  the  symbolic  worth 
of  Dante's  "  Inferno,"  its  fitness  to  represent  the 
judicial  process  in  history,  that  saves  it  from 
the  doom  that  has  fallen  upon  all  post-mortem 
dogmatism.  It  is  deplorable  to  think  that  for 
perhaps  eighteen  hundred  years  the  Christian 
imagination  has  run  riot  in  its  detailed  and  hor- 
rible representation  of  the  state  of  wicked  men 
after  death.  Prof.  A.  V.  G.  Allen  has  well  said 
that  the  least  original  and  characteristic  part 
of  Edwards's  teaching  is  found  in  his  sermon 
on  "  Sinners  in  the  hands  of  an  angry  God." 
In  that  deplorable  discourse  Edwards  becomes 
the  spokesman  of  a  tradition  going  back  to  very 
early  tunes.  Such  confident  detailed  represen- 


THE  MORAL  UNIVERSE  301 

tation  had  been  an  immemorial  custom.  I  recall 
now  a  sentence  from  a  sermon  of  Dr.  Griffin 
from  the  text,  "A  man  shall  be  as  an  hiding 
place,"  which  runs  thus  :  "  But  to  his  own  dear 
people  he  will  be  a  refuge  from  the  waves  that 
shall  eternally  lash  the  howling  millions  of  the 
damned."  How  to  stop  this  terrible  Babel  be- 
came the  serious  consideration  of  a  generation 
of  noble  teachers.  But  their  protest  would  have 
availed  nothing  if  the  good  providence  of  God 
that  evermore  educates  the  world  had  not  inter- 
vened in  its  behalf.  A  vast  suspicion  of  the 
immortality  of  man  was  spread  through  the 
educated  world.  A  new  and  yet  more  funda- 
mental interest  sobered  the  old.  The  terrible 
doubt  arose  whether  both  heaven  and  hell  were 
not  mere  superfluities.  The  thought  pressed 
itself  home  upon  the  dogmatist  in  Eschatology, 
You  may  not  need  these  places.  It  may  be 
that  they  are  eternal  vacancies.  It  may  be  that 
nothing  can  be  done  to  people  them  from  this 
earth.  It  may  be  that  we  are  such  stuff  as 
dreams  are  made  of,  and  that  our  little  life  is 
rounded  with  the  sleep  that  knows  no  awaken- 
ing. 

One  does  not  need  to  be  very  old  in  order  that 
one  may  have  witnessed  this  vast  and  wholesome 
silence  fall  upon  the  eschatological  Babel.  The 
shadow  was  moved  backward  from  man's  future 


302  THE  UNIVERSAL   ULTIMATE 

to  man's  nature.  The  shallow  and  heartless  idiom 
became  obsolete  by  simply  asking  a  profounder 
question.  The  old,  vague,  and  somewhat  theat- 
rical earnestness  was  converted  into  an  anxiety 
indefinitely  deeper.  For  the  fate  of  the  wicked 
after  death  there  was  substituted  the  fate  of  hu- 
manity. The  theologian  was  thrown  back  upon 
himself,  back  upon  his  kind.  Out  of  this  change  of 
interest  from  the  secondary  to  the  primary  has 
come  the  new  mood  in  which  all  questions  of  des- 
tiny are  faced.  It  is  a  mood  of  more  pronounced 
ethical  rigor,  yet  this  ethical  rigor  is  suffused  with 
unwonted  tenderness,  and  lighted  with  the  hope 
that  is  inseparable  from  goodness.  Nowhere,  per- 
haps, is  the  example  of  widespread  wholesomeness 
arising  from  carrying  the  debate  to  its  fundamen- 
tal form  so  conspicuous  as  at  this  point,  at  least 
for  the  present  generation.  Before  we  build  the 
judgment-seat  in  the  future,  we  must  first  ascer- 
tain what  likelihoods  exist  that  we  shall  live  to 
appear  before  it.  Before  dealing  in  detail  with 
the  judgment  of  God  in  eternity,  we  must  de- 
cide whether  or  not  there  is  any  extra-mundane 
meaning  to  human  life.  Such  are  some  of  the 
questions  that  raise  the  great  primary  interests 
of  faith  along  this  line,  and  that  generate  the 
humanity  and  the  insight  and  the  candor  that 
are  the  hope  of  theology. 

It  seems  as  if  there  were  but  one  sure  way  to 


THE  MORAL   UNIVERSE  303 

recall  the  Christian  church  from  intellectual  pet- 
tiness. It  appears  as  if  that  one  way  were  to 
throw  into  doubt  the  eternal  verities.  The  sick 
child  on  the  verge  of  death  hushes  to  silence  the 
social  ambitions  and  miserable  disappointments 
of  the  fashionable  home,  and  when  faith  itself 
is  at  stake  men  begin  to  desist  from  their  pious 
trifling.  It  would  seem  as  if  God  in  his  provi- 
dential education  of  man  were  throwing  his  own 
being  and  character  into  doubt,  in  order  that  all 
theists  may  unite  in  a  holy  controversy  against 
all  atheists.  Christians  are  driven  back  upon  the 
question  whether  Jesus  represents  anything  but 
himself,  that  the  great  line  of  division  may  be  be- 
tween Jesus  as  the  assurance  of  the  moral  being 
of  God  and  Jesus  with  nothing  for  background 
but  the  eternal  silence.  Human  destiny  is  in 
doubt  that  human  nature  may  be  understood. 
Forms  are  thrown  into  infinite  discredit  that  the 
true  issue  may  be  seen  to  be  between  truth  and 
falsehood,  righteousness  and  iniquity,  humanity 
and  inhumanity.  The  Roman  centurion  took 
Paul  and  locked  him  up  to  protect  him  from  the 
mob.  The  Eternal  Spirit  would  seem  to  be  thus 
securing  believers  against  the  crowd  of  their  fierce 
and  foolish  questions.  What  are  questions  of  rit- 
ual, of  ecclesiastical  order,  of  episcopal  succession, 
but  the  immeasurable  pettinesses  of  the  Christian 
church  ?  How  can  this  Babel  be  put  to  silence  ? 


304  THE  UNIVERSAL   ULTIMATE 

Only,  it  would  seem,  by  the  providential  centu- 
rion, taking  all  the  poor  debaters  about  trifles  and 
locking  them  up  in  the  one  awful  controversy 
over  the  reality  of  the  fundamental  things  of 
faith. 

It  is  this  constant  catholic  dealing  with  the 
fundamental  and  the  essential  that  makes  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  the  very  bread  of  life.  Read 
the  book  of  Leviticus,  or  listen  to  the  report  of 
the  rabbinical  debates  current  in  the  time  of 
Jesus,  or  attend  some  gathering  of  Pharisees  and 
hear  them  speak,  and  then  join  the  disciples  of 
Jesus  and  hear  their  Master.  His  questions  are 
questions  of  the  moral  being  of  God  and  the 
moral  nature  of  man.  The  Fatherhood  of  God, 
the  divine  sonhood  and  the  universal  human 
brotherhood  of  man,  the  reign  of  Infinite  love  in 
the  hearts  of  men  as  the  ideal  of  faith  and  the 
goal  of  history,  the  claims  of  justice  and  kind- 
ness, the  infinitely  varied  and  supreme  disclosure 
of  the  moral  organism  of  humanity,  and  the 
tides  of  the  Holy  Spirit  that  keep  it  a  living 
organism,  time  as  an  epoch  in  the  endless  exist- 
ence of  the  soul  in  the  presence  of  God,  and 
eternal  life  —  the  life  of  sovereign  love  —  as 
the  grand  characteristic  of  normal  and  happy 
existence  in  this  world  and  in  all  worlds,  —  these 
teachings  of  Jesus  recall  the  sphere  in  which  he 
moved.  The  petty  interests  then  as  now  were 


THE  MORAL    UNIVERSE  305 

infinite ;  the  important  but  secondary  interests 
were  imperious  in  that  day  as  in  this ;  but  Jesus 
chose  the  eternal  as  his  passion  ;  he  lifted  all 
who  heard  him  into  the  sense  of  it,  and  he  re- 
deemed the  vocation  of  the  teacher  from  barren- 
ness into  the  discipline  that  enlightens  and  feeds 
the  rational  nature  of  man. 

The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  the  supreme  criti- 
cism upon  a  superficial  and  errant  civilization  ;  it 
carries  one  into  the  consciousness  of  the  profound- 
est  needs  of  the  soul,  and  it  matches  these  with 
the  sublimest  assurances  of  God's  love.  In  its 
resolution  of  the  law  into  the  life  and  obligation 
of  the  spirit  it  again  carries  one  into  an  infinite 
interest.  In  its  discussion  of  the  meaning  of 
righteousness,  fasting,  almsgiving,  prayer,  sincer- 
ity, it  takes  the  race  into  the  presence  of  the 
eternal  realities  of  the  moral  universe.  The 
teaching  of  Jesus  and  the  spirit  of  Jesus  are  a 
divine  discipline  in  the  fundamental,  the  essen- 
tial, the  everlasting.  The  heart  of  all  faith  and 
all  life  forever  beats  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus, 
and  therefore  the  heart  of  man  in  all  ages 
opens  to  him.  He  is  the  abiding  teacher  be- 
cause he  teaches  with  unapproachable  depth 
and  nobleness  abiding  truth.  The  authority  of 
the  Gospel  is  due  to  its  insight  and  to  its  range 
of  subjects.  The  divine  vision  and  the  divine 
world  unite  in  the  Gospel,  and  it  is  this  union 


806  THE  UNIVERSAL  ULTIMATE 

that  gives  it  sovereignty  over  human  interest. 
In  a  generation  flooded  with  incidental  ques- 
tions, compelled  to  spend  much  of  its  strength  on 
subjects  of  secondary  concern,  kept  back  for  good 
reasons  and  also  for  bad  reasons  from  the  vision 
of  the  essential,  nothing  is  more  needed  than 
discipline  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  What  he 
chose  to  omit  and  to  disregard  is  second  in  im- 
portance only  to  what  he  elected  as  the  substance 
of  his  message.  He  scorned  no  human  interest ; 
ignorance  of  any  kind  finds  no  sanction  in  the 
spirit  of  Jesus;  growth  in  all  genuine  ways  is 
provided  in  the  impulse  which  he  communicates 
to  his  disciples  ;  and  yet  the  perspective  of  Jesus 
is  the  thing  that  this  generation  needs  above  all 
else  to  control  the  work  of  its  intelligence. 

This  brings  up  for  consideration  the  historical 
and  literary  questions  about  the  Bible.  They 
certainly  are  important.  If  one  could  have  a 
thoroughly  scientific  view  of  this  collection  of 
books,  and  thus  be  sure  which  are  parts  and 
which  are  wholes;  and  if  one  could  further 
assign  to  the  proper  person,  place,  and  time 
these  several  compositions,  surrounding  each  with 
its  own  environment,  putting  behind  it  its  real 
author,  and  before  it  its  definite  and  immediate 
object,  one  would  be  immensely  enriched  as  a 
student  and  teacher  of  the  Bible.  The  local 
meaning  is  the  color  in  the  east,  the  gateway  of 


THE  MORAL   UNIVERSE  307 

morning  through  which  the  glory  of  the  universal 
significance  comes.  Universals  are  best  seen 
through  particulars,  things  eternal  through  things 
temporal.  The  motive,  therefore,  to  historical 
and  literary  scholarship  is  urgent  and  perma- 
nent. The  value  of  Shakespere's  work  is  in  a 
way  independent  of  his  personal  history,  but  his 
great  creations  would  mean  more  to  us  if  we 
could  see  them  rising  out  of  the  times,  circum- 
stances, and  fortunes  of  his  own  soul.  The  in- 
dustry expended  in  research  into  the  facts  in  the 
career  of  a  Luther,  a  Cromwell,  a  Burns,  or  a 
Lincoln,  is  an  attestation  to  the  truth  of  the 
assumption  that  the  knowledge  of  the  man  is  the 
best  introduction  to  the  knowledge  of  his  mes- 
sage. There  is  nothing  divine  in  ignorance. 
The  fact  that  any  Christian  century  is  dim  is 
not  a  credit  to  the  believer.  We  have  a  right 
to  expect  that  historical  inquiry  will  yet  do 
greater  things  for  the  church,  that  it  will  make 
more  vivid  and  palpable  the  environment  of 
Jesus,  that  it  will  present  the  transcendent  figure 
of  the  Master  more  and  more  in  the  rich  detail 
and  complexion  of  nature,  custom,  belief,  tradi- 
tion, and  need  amid  which  he  lived.  In  him  the 
Eternal  came  through  the  temporal.  He  is, 
therefore,  the  highest  vindication  of  the  scientific 
spirit,  the  spirit  that  would  reach  ideas  through 
facts,  that  regards  the  actual  historic  framework 


808  THE  UNIVERSAL   ULTIMATE 

as  alive  with  meaning,  that  seeks  the  universal 
in  the  particular.  Events  are  great.  The  web 
of  events  woven  by  living  men,  the  warp  and 
woof  of- which  are  their  sorrow  and  hope,  their 
defeat  and  victory,  is  too  important  to  be  neg- 
lected. The  rich  detail  of  the  great  epochs  of 
the  world,  like  the  Biblical  epoch,  are  nothing 
less  than  windows  through  which  we  may  look 
upon  the  order,  movement,  and  splendor  of  the 
spiritual  universe.  Longfellow  puts  this  tran- 
scendent value  of  the  particular  with  his  usual 
felicity.  The  Village  Blacksmith  hears  his 
daughter  singing  in  the  village  choir ;  that  is  the 
single  event,  and  here  is  the  transcendent  mean- 
ing it  has  for  him,  — 

"  It  sounds  to  him  like  her  mother's  voice, 
Singing  in  Paradise." 

Biblical  learning  may  be  said  to  be  the  rediscov- 
ery of  the  fact  in  time,  place,  circumstance,  com- 
position, person,  utterance,  object ;  and  the  fact 
is  the  window  whereby  we  may  look  out  upon 
the  idea  in  the  peculiar  light  and  shadow  of  a 
special  environment. 

All  this  is  true,  and  still  it  must  be  said  that 
these  historical  and  literary  inquiries  are  not 
fundamental.  Suppose  that  one  has  been  able 
to  rearrange  the  Old  Testament  in  exact  accord 
with  the  veritable  history,  one  has  yet  to  face 
this  problem,  What  is  the  worth  of  the  Old 


THE  MORAL  UNIVERSE  309 

Testament  ?  To  what  is  it  a  witness  ?  Does  it 
testify  to  anything  but  to  Israel  ?  Has  it  any 
value  as  a  message  for  man  ?  Is  it  in  any  sense 
a  word  from  the  Eternal  ?  Is  it  revelation  ? 
That  is  the  fundamental  question  to  which  the 
higher  critics  have  paid  no  attention.  Is  there 
a  living  God  of  whom  Jehovah  is  but  an  imper- 
fect conception  ?  Does  he  speak  to  men  ?  Is 
there  any  monumental  record  of  the  grand  dia- 
logue which  elect  spirits  have  held  with  him? 
In  the  presence  of  these  questions  those  that 
have  absolutely  dominated  the  Biblical  scholar 
for  a  generation  become  trivial.  Believers  do 
not  fear  the  higher  criticism ;  they  fear  the 
scholar  who  asks  no  deeper  question,  and  who 
has  no  answer  to  the  demand  for  ultimate  real- 
ity. If  the  rebellion  is  crushed,  few  will  be  dis- 
turbed over  the  sifting  of  the  documents  in 
which  Grant  and  Lee  recorded  the  event.  If 
there  is  a  speaking  God  in  the  universe,  believ- 
ers in  him  will  not  be  anxious  under  all  honest 
examination  and  cross-examination  of  even  the 
supreme  historic  witness  to  the  fact.  If  God  is 
the  "  I  am,"  God  as  the  "  I  was  "  may  be  freely 
considered  without  injury  to  faith.  The  critic 
with  no  faith,  and  the  critic  with  no  sense  of  the 
fundamental  questions  of  faith  are  the  menace 
of  the  time.  Mary  the  worshiper  of  the  dead 
Christ  is  appalled  at  the  empty  sepulchre. 


310  THE  UNIVERSAL   ULTIMATE 

"  They  have  taken  away  my  Lord,  and  I  know 
not  where  they  have  laid  him."  Mary  the  dis- 
ciple of  the  risen  Christ  turns  away  from  the 
empty  grave  in  perfect  peace.  The  sorrow  is 
that  she  should  have  ever  identified  the  grave 
and  her  Master.  The  more  the  critic  says  about 
the  dead  portions  of  the  Old  Testament,  while 
saying  nothing  about  the  living  God,  the  more 
desperately  does  the  devout  believer  cling  to 
them ;  but  when  the  critic  is  at  the  same  time 
the  prophet  of  the  living  God,  the  shame  of  the 
believer  then  is  that  he  should  have  ever  sup- 
posed that  these  Hebrew  superstitions  and  inhu- 
manities, these  Hebrew  tombs,  could  have  con- 
tained him.  The  superficial  inquiry  when  it 
obscures  the  fundamental  issue  is  simply  intol- 
erable. Stimulation  will  make  the  limbs  of  a 
dead  man  perform  wonderful  feats  of  contraction 
and  repulsion,  but  are  not  these  performances 
ghastly  when  one  thinks  of  the  dead  heart  and 
the  vacant  brain  ?  Historical  criticism  upon  a 
dead  revelation  is  like  that.  We  want  to  know 
whether  the  man  is  alive  whose  hands  are  mov- 
ing ;  we  desire  to  know  whether  there  is  life  and 
worth  underneath  historical  learning.  We  go 
to  fundamental  questions  for  relief.  And  one 
of  these  questions  is  the  question  of  this  moral 
universe. 


THE  MORAL   UNIVERSE  311 

II 

About  the  reality  of  a  moral  world  there  is  no 
doubt.  Human  society  is  such  a  world.  It  has 
its  basis  in  man's  nature,  it  is  an  attempt  at  the 
realization  of  moral  ideals.  The  ends  of  justice, 
the  sacredness  of  truth  between  man  and  man, 
and  the  sense  of  the  worth  and  awful  sanctity  of 
human  life  are  inseparable  from  the  social  con- 
sciousness. The  life  of  man  is  in  society.  Soci- 
ety appears  in  the  form  of  the  family,  the  busi- 
ness fellowship,  the  communities  of  art  and 
science,  in  the  great  relation  of  citizenship,  and 
in  those  ideas  and  feelings  that  assert  the  reality 
of  human  brotherhood.  Human  life  thus  organ- 
ized by  moral  reason  both  in  its  instinctive  and 
reflective  operations  is  forever  shadowed  by  the 
vision  of  a  better  than  its  best.  It  is  in  duty 
bound  to  become  that  better  social  whole.  Hu- 
man relationship  is  the  primal  moral  fact.  Rela- 
tionships yield  ideals,  ideals  impose  obligations, 
obligations  in  the  long  run  enforce  obedience, 
and  moral  obedience  is  the  great  affirmation  of 
the  reality  of  the  moral  order.  The  negative 
witness  to  the  same  reality  is  disobedience  and 
its  issue  of  pain  and  disaster. 

The  moral  world  of  man  is  the  ground  of  the 
discrimination  which  he  makes  between  himself 
and  nature.  He  does  not  expect  from  nature 


312  THE  UNIVERSAL   ULTIMATE 

what  he  expects  from  his  fellowman.  The  torrid 
heat,  the  polar  cold,  the  storm,  the  earthquake, 
and  the  fire  have  no  mercy  upon  man.  He  does 
not  look  for  this  high  attribute  in  nature.  When 
one  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's  characters  beats  the 
boat  out  of  which  his  boy  Steenie  had  been  lost, 
swears  at  it,  and  blames  it  for  the  deplored 
event,  we  all  see,  as  the  fine  old  Antiquary  saw, 
that  the  poor  father  is  crazed  with  grief.  In 
his  senses  no  one  blames  the  sea  for  sending  the 
ship  upon  the  rocks,  or  the  rocks  for  wrecking 
it,  or  the  fire  for  the  destruction  of  property,  or 
wind  and  tide  for  the  desolation  of  cities.  No 
one  holds  the  volcano  amenable  to  the  moral 
ideal  of  man.  But  the  Italian  and  Spaniard 
in  the  Inquisition,  the  Frenchman  on  the  night 
of  St.  Bartholomew,  the  riot  of  the  Turk  and  the 
Chinaman,  are  held  in  utter  detestation.  They 
violate  humanity,  they  commit  outrage  upon 
man  and  his  moral  world.  In  the  tenderest  of 
all  English  ballads,  we  do  not  blame  nature  for 
starving  the  children  ;  but  we  load  with  execra- 
tion the  inhuman  wretch  who  left  them  to  starve. 
Upon  the  basis  of  his  moral  world  man  dis- 
tinguishes between  himself  and  the  animal.  He 
is  quite  ready  to  admit  the  struggle  for  the  life 
of  others  by  which  the  animal  struggle  for  exist- 
ence is  qualified.  Still  this  precious  anticipa- 
tion of  high  social  feeling  does  not  carry  one 


THE  MORAL   UNIVERSE  313 

far.  No  man  expects  the  mother  reptile  or  lion, 
or  tiger,  in  its  struggle  for  the  life  of  others, 
to  spare  him.  He  does  not  look  for  sympathy 
to  that  strenuous  section  of  existence.  He  may 
have  a  quick  eye  for  the  rudimentary  altruism 
in  the  wild  beast,  but  he  is  not  so  foolish  as  to 
think  that  his  existence  or  happiness  is  any  con- 
cern to  it.  The  concern  of  the  lion  for  the  lamb 
is  proverbial,  and  it  is  a  standing  illustration 
of  man's  suspicion  of  the  courtesies  of  the  wild 
beast.  He  must  protect  himself  against  it.  He 
cannot  demand  of  it  any  consideration.  It  is 
not  in  his  world.  It  is  not  amenable  to  his 
standards ;  it  is  not  the  subject  of  his  judg- 
ments, it  cares  nothing  for  his  ideals,  and  in 
separating  himself  from  the  beast  man  asserts 
his  great  and  ineffaceable  distinction.  Even 
the  tame  animal  whose  nature  breaks  loose  and 
works  damage  upon  its  owner  and  friend,  like 
the  dog  that  in  a  fit  of  ill-temper  attacks  its 
master,  or  the  horse  that  knocks  him  down, 
is  not  held  accountable.  In  the  same  way  the 
fool  and  the  madman  are  no  part  of  man's 
world.  They  are  irresponsible.  The  life  that 
is  held  to  be  unanswerable  to  moral  judgment 
at  once  falls  out  of  the  human  sphere.  Amen- 
ableness  to  moral  judgment  is  the  essential  mark 
of  manhood ;  without  it  there  is  no  manhood. 
Amenableness  to  the  moral  ideal  of  society  is 


314  THE  UNIVERSAL   ULTIMATE 

the  seraphim  with  the  flaming  sword  that  guard 
the  entrance  into  the  human  paradise. 

Upon  the  basis  of  his  moral  world  man  dis- 
criminates between  the  actual  and  the  ideal  man, 
between  what  he  is  and  what  he  ought  to  be. 
The  apostle  speaks  for  the  race  when  he  describes 
the  dualism  in  his  life,  the  carnal  mind  and  the 
spiritual.  The  true  selfhood  is  set  over  against 
the  false,  in  every  morally  awakened  person,  as 
sharply  as  it  is  contrasted  with  nature  or  the 
brute  life  of  the  world.  Idealism  is  inseparable 
from  the  normal  human  being.  To  the  normal 
man  the  ideal  self  is  the  true  self.  "  To  thine 
own  self  be  true."  Here  is  the  discrimination 
between  the  authentic  man  and  the  spurious. 
"  I  count  not  myself  to  have  apprehended." 
Here  is  the  judgment  rendered  against  the 
actual  self  and  in  favor  of  the  ideal.  Where 
there  is  little  or  no  conscious  schism  in  life,  the 
actual  is  but  the  seed  out  of  which  the  blade, 
the  ear,  and  the  full  corn  hi  the  ear  are  to  come. 
At  best  the  actual  is  but  the  plan  of  the  self  in 
the  initial  steps  of  the  great  process  of  fulfill- 
ment. It  is  the  acorn  with  the  pattern  of  the 
oak  lying  at  its  heart,  beginning  to  take  hold 
of  the  soil,  and  looking  forward  to  the  vast 
struggle  through  which  the  pattern  is  to  be 
turned  into  life.  What  is  true  of  the  individ- 
ual man  is  true  of  social  man.  One  permanent 


THE  MORAL   UNIVERSE  315 

element  in  society  is  the  clear  recognition  of  the 
difference  between  the  form  which  it  wears  and 
that  which  it  should  wear.  Man's  moral  world 
declares  itself  through  an  idealism  which  over- 
hangs the  entire  range  of  his  interests.  From 
the  position  of  this  ideal  selfhood  man  judges 
the  actual  in  himself,  the  animal  beside  him, 
and  the  natural  order  beyond  him.  He  feels 
about  the  ideal  as  the  Indian  did  when  found 
in  the  forest :  "  Indian  no  lost ;  wigwam  lost." 
The  centre  of  assurance  is  the  ideal,  the  position 
from  which  to  discover  what  is  lost  is  the  ideal. 
Law  is  but  an  expression  of  this  peculiarity 
of  man's  world.  It  is  the  embodiment  in  the 
form  of  a  statute  of  a  judgment  to  which  all 
citizens  are  answerable.  Law  is  the  confession 
of  a  social  ideal  and  the  enforcement  of  it.  The 
ideal  may  be  low  or  high,  in  either  case  it  is  real. 
All  government  originates  in  conscience ;  all  good 
government  has  its  primal  support  in  conscience. 
The  moral  judgment  in  man  is  the  faculty  of 
vision  for  the  better  order  and  the  higher  well- 
being  of  society ;  and  law  is  the  continuous 
enactment  in  less  imperfect  forms  of  the  con- 
tinuously improving  vision  of  the  moral  judg- 
ment. As  the  pattern  in  the  mount  was  to  the 
tabernacle  in  the  wilderness,  so  is  law  to  the 
moral  judgment  of  the  nation.  The  tabernacle 
is  immeasurably  below  the  pattern,  yet  it  is 


316  THE  UNIVERSAL  ULTIMATE 

fashioned  after  it,  and  bears  some  resemblance 
to  it.  Law  is  unmeasured  distances  behind  the 
best  moral  judgment  of  the  time ;  nevertheless 
it  is  in  pursuit  of  it.  It  is  framed  upon  that 
moral  judgment  as  its  model,  and  with  all  its 
failures  there  are  at  least  traces  of  the  ideal 
in  it. 

Moral  criticism  is  another  expression  of  man's 
moral  world.  Every  honest  man  encamps  at  the 
foot  of  Sinai ;  and  if  he  has  advanced  to  Mount 
Zion,  it  is  to  a  moral  judge  infinitely  more  severe. 
Every  honest  man  lives  under  the  shadow  of  his 
own  rebuke.  Our  hearts  condemn  us  because 
we  live  in  a  moral  world  that  is  purer  than  we. 
The  passing  of  judgment  upon  our  fellowmen  is 
inevitable.  It  is  impossible  to  look  with  the 
same  feeling  upon  Moses  and  Pharaoh,  Samuel 
and  Saul,  Ahab  and  Josiah,  Paul  and  Pilate, 
Marcus  Aurelius  and  Nero,  Luther  and  Leo  X., 
Washington  and  Benedict  Arnold.  The  moral 
contrast  that  one  finds  between  Jesus  and  Judas 
is  a  contrast  which  in  less  emphatic  form,  often 
indeed  greatly  toned  down,  is  wrought  into  the 
history  of  mankind.  The  sentence  passed  upon 
others  may  be  just  or  unjust ;  in  either  case  it 
attests  the  presence  of  the  moral  judge  in  man. 
In  a  similar  way  institutions  are  regarded.  The 
governments  of  the  world  are  arraigned  before 
the  moral  sense  of  mankind  on  two  counts.  They 


THE  MORAL   UNIVERSE  317 

are  arraigned  on  the  question  of  the  adequacy 
of  their  constitution;  they  are  brought  into 
court  to  answer  for  the  administration  of  that 
constitution.  The  church  stands  in  the  same 
great  process  of  judgment.  Is  its  form  the  best 
practicable  institutional  embodiment  of  the  Gos- 
pel? Is  its  administration  in  accord  with  its 
Christian  ideal?  The  moral  world  of  man  is 
nowhere  more  evident  than  in  the  vigilant  eye 
that  the  community  keeps  upon  the  church  and 
its  ministers.  They  must  be  clean  who  bear  the 
vessels  of  the  Lord. 

The  application  of  conscience  to  the  behavior 
of  the  universe  is  the  last  and  highest  expression 
of  man's  moral  world.  Moral  criticism  of  the 
universe  is  indeed  part  of  the  supreme  consola- 
tion. It  may  amount  to  a  terrible  indictment ; 
yet  the  shadow  which  it  throws  upon  the  face  of 
nature  is  cast  by  the  light  in  man.  One  cannot 
be  thankful  enough  to  thinkers  like  Lucretius, 
Lucian,  Hume,  Schopenhauer,  Mill,  and  Huxley 
for  the  immense  assertion  of  the  moral  world 
of  man  which  they  inevitably  make  in  their 
fierce  criticism  of  the  cosmos.  When  a  great 
succession  of  thinkers  regard  the  operation  of 
nature  as  immoral,  when  they  curse  the  universe 
for  its  inhumanity,  they  are  giving  one  of  the 
strongest  testimonies  to  the  moral  world  of  man, 
and  they  are  inaugurating  a  vast  return  to  that 


318  THE  UNIVERSAL   ULTIMATE 

faith  in  the  universe  which  they  have  set  them- 
selves to  abolish ;  for  the  greater  that  we  make 
man,  even  when  this  greatness  is  at  the  expense 
of  the  universe,  the  deeper  do  we  lay  the  founda- 
tions of  faith.  The  man  who  finds  something 
divine  in  himself  and  in  his  kind  sooner  or  later 
will  be  sure  to  discover  the  source  of  it  in  God. 
This  criticism  of  the  cosmos  becomes  a  censure 
upon  theology  for  seeking  the  moral  God  where 
he  cannot  be  found.  It  inaugurates  the  return 
of  man  to  himself,  the  search  for  God  through 
his  best  work ;  it  leads  back  to  the  religion  of 
the  Incarnation,  to  the  faith  in  God  that  is 
founded  upon  the  Divine  man. 

The  reality  of  the  moral  world  may  thus  be 
taken  for  granted.  The  human  race  lives  in  this 
world.  But  is  there  such  a  thing  as  a  moral 
universe  ?  Human  society  is  a  fact  in  the  many- 
sided  history  of  this  planet.  It  is  enfolded  in 
an  immeasurable  cosmical  order.  Is  it  an  alien 
in  the  heart  of  immensity  ?  Is  it  an  island  and 
the  only  one  in  the  universe  ?  Is  there  no  con- 
science anywhere  except  in  man's  spirit,  no  love 
except  in  man's  heart,  no  moral  reason  and  no 
law  of  righteousness  beyond  human  society? 
Is  the  moral  world  merely  human,  a  phase  of 
the  highest  development  of  life  upon  the  earth, 
the  brilliant  explosion  of  the  rocket  that  has 
run  its  swift  course,  something  real  but  local, 


THE  MORAL   UNIVERSE  319 

true  but  without  universal  significance?  Is  the 
moral  order  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land  and  that 
forever?  or,  like  the  first  Hebrew  in  Canaan, 
is  the  universe  prophetically  its  possession  ? 
Through  the  terrestial  fact  of  man's  moral  world 
are  there  indubitable  intimations  of  the  reality 
of  a  moral  universe  ? 

Ill 

From  the  fact  of  correspondence  between  or- 
ganism and  environment,  it  would  seem  to  fol- 
low that  there  is  something  in  the  universe  that 
answers  to  the  moral  life  of  man.  The  sea,  the 
earth,  and  the  air  constitute  different  environ- 
ments for  different  forms  of  life,  and  the  fish, 
the  quadruped,  and  the  bird  attest  the  reality  of 
these  environments.  Organism  and  environment 
are  as  essential  each  to  the  other  as  upper  and 
nether  millstone ;  and  the  existence  of  the  organ- 
ism and  its  growth  is  proof  of  the  reality  and 
hospitality  of  its  environment.  Life  is  its  own 
witness ;  it  is  besides  a  witness  to  the  sympathy 
of  the  cosmos.  The  fossil  is  proof  that  nature 
once  had  room  for  animal  life ;  the  actual  living 
creature  is  the  attestation  that  she  is  still  kind. 
The  successive  generations  of  the  organisms  that 
survive  declare  while  they  survive  that  suste- 
nance and  shelter  exist  for  them  in  nature.  Up 
from  the  life  of  the  sea,  over  the  broad  earth, 


820  THE  UNIVERSAL  ULTIMATE 

from  domestic  animal  and  wild,  from  gentle  and 
fierce,  and  from  the  sky  and  its  singing  inhabit- 
ants comes  the  one  great  assertion  that  the  real 
world  and  the  real  organism  belong  together. 

Waiving  for  the  moment  the  Christian  claim 
that  the  pure  in  heart  see  God,  that  the  moral 
universe  is  given  in  moral  experience,  that  the 
reality  of  the  soul's  environment  is  not  a  matter 
of  inference  but  of  insight,  it  may  be  urged  that 
a  moral  organism  without  a  moral  opportunity 
would  be  contrary  to  the  analogy  of  life.  From 
the  fact  that  everywhere  else  organism  and  op- 
portunity go  together,  one  is  led  to  expect  a  simi- 
lar correspondence  between  the  moral  organism 
of  society  and  the  moral  environment.  And  as 
life  is  always  the  witness  of  the  reality  both  of 
the  organism  and  its  opportunity,  so  again  the 
persistence  and  improvement  of  moral  life  is 
proof  of  the  organism  and  its  answering  environ- 
ment. It  would  be  strange  if  there  should  be 
waterbrooks  corresponding  to  the  need  of  the 
hart  that  pants  after  them,  and  no  living  God 
or  divine  universe  answering  to  the  thirst  of  the 
soul.  And  further,  if  the  refreshed  hart  is  a 
good  witness  for  the  reality  of  the  waterbrooks, 
it  is  difficult  to  see  why  the  abounding  soul  is 
not  an  equally  good  witness  of  the  reality  of  the 
streams  that  make  glad  the  city  of  God.  In  an 
interesting  essay  upon  "  The  Everlasting  Reality 


THE  MORAL   UNIVERSE  321 

of  Religion,"  1  John  Fiske  has  restated  in  modern 
terms  the  ancient  argument  for  the  existence  of 
God  from  analogy.  His  fundamental  position 
is  that  organism  and  environment  match  each 
other  throughout  the  domain  of  physical  life  ;  and 
from  this  position  it  is  claimed,  upon  the  strength 
of  analogy,  that  it  is  reasonable  to  assume  the 
reality  of  the  Divine  being  who  answers  to  the 
organism  of  the  human  soul.  This  argument 
should  be  pressed  to  a  yet  stronger  conclusion. 
Life  should  be  called  in  as  a  witness  for  that 
without  which  it  could  not  be.  As  in  the  physi- 
cal domain  it  is  the  persisting  life  that  is  the  last 
and  best  testimony  to  the  correspondence  between 
organism  and  opportunity,  so  in  the  spiritual 
sphere  it  is  life  that  is  the  supreme  witness.  The 
big,  fat,  glossy  tiger  in  the  jungle  is  a  living  wit- 
ness to  the  correspondence  between  organism  and 
environment,  and  the  soul  of  the  saint  is  a  sim- 
ilar witness  to  the  correspondence  between  the 
moral  organism  and  the  moral  environment. 
That  moral  life  in  the  persons  that  constitute 
society  should  persist  is  the  final  attestation  to 
the  sympathetic  reality  of  the  moral  environ- 
ment. 

This  then  is  the  fundamental  position.  Life 
is  the  sure  witness  for  the  reality  of  that  without 
which  it  could  not  exist.  This  self-evident  con- 

1  Through  Nature  to  God,  pp.  132-194. 


322  THE  UNIVERSAL   ULTIMATE 

viction  may  be  reduced  to  the  form  of  analogy. 
Upon  the  justifiable  assumption  that  as  it  is  with 
life  in  the  physical  kingdom  so  it  is  with  life  in 
the  kingdom  of  the  spirit,  we  may  advance  to  a 
somewhat  closer  consideration  of  the  signs  of  the 
reality  of  the  moral  universe.  The  belief  in  its 
reality  is  of  immemorial  antiquity.  The  saying 
that  "  the  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against 
Sisera  "  is  one  expression  of  the  belief.  The 
remark  embodies  the  faith  that  the  cosmos  favors 
the  moral  cause.  Another  expression  of  the  con- 
viction is  the  prophetic  cry,  "  My  sword  hath 
been  bathed  in  heaven."  Here  the  idea  is  that 
the  conflict  between  truth  and  falsehood,  right- 
eousness and  iniquity,  is  a  universal  conflict.  A 
third  form  of  the  same  feeling  is  the  vision  of 
Jacob  and  the  realization  of  this  vision  in  Jesus 
Christ.1  In  the  vision  of  the  first  Israelite  the 
ladder  reached  from  earth  to  heaven,  and  minis- 
tering beings  under  an  august  commission  went 
and  came  between  the  human  dreamer  and  the 
Infinite  life.  In  the  consciousness  of  Jesus  the 
heavens  were  open.  The  intercommunion  of 
the  human  and  the  divine  became  fact.  The 
sympathetic  reality  of  the  moral  universe  was 
given  in  the  moral  life  of  the  Supreme  Man. 
Taking  these  three  forms  of  the  belief  as  con- 

1  Judges  T.  20 ;  Isaiah  xxxiv.  5 ;  Genesis  xxviii.  12 ;  John 
L51. 


THE  MORAL   UNIVERSE  323 

venient  guides  in  the  examination  of  it,  the  first 
question  is,  Does  the  material  world  upon  the 
whole  favor  man's  moral  world  ?  Do  the  moral 
races  become  the  ascendant  races  ?  Do  the  stars 
in  their  courses  fight  against  the  moral  cause ; 
or  are  they  completely  neutral ;  or  are  they 
upon  the  whole  a  sublime  ally  ?  The  answer  of 
evolutionary  science  is  that  the  cosmos  is  on 
the  side  of  human  morality.  In  the  struggle 
for  existence  morality  has  been  for  human  soci- 
ety a  help  and  not  a  hindrance.  In  the  long 
run  morality  tells  in  favor  of  survival ;  it  tells 
for  the  survival  of  the  individual,  the  family,  and 
the  nation.  Morality  gives  greater  endurance  ; 
it  promotes  the  development  of  intelligence ;  it 
leads  to  larger,  compacter,  and  more  fruitful 
social  combinations.  In  the  passage  of  empire 
from  Egypt  to  Assyria,  from  Assyria  to  Baby- 
lon, from  Persia  to  Greece,  from  Greece  to 
Rome,  from  Rome  debauched  to  the  peoples  out 
of  whom  modern  Europe  has  come,  from  France 
to  Great  Britain,  and  from  Spain  to  the  United 
States,  there  has  been  upon  the  whole  a  moral 
gain  to  mankind.  To  the  extent  that  the  moral 
races  become  the  dominant  races,  it  may  be  said 
that  righteousness  has  the  cosmos  on  its  side. 
It  should  be  added  that  all  the  facts  that  attest 
the  reality  of  human  progress  likewise  attest  the 
moral  sympathy  of  man's  environment.  Against 


324  THE   UNIVERSAL   ULTIMATE 

the  will  of  that  environment  progress  could  not 
live.  Upon  the  supposition  of  cosmic  indiffer- 
ence morality  and  immorality  would  have  an 
equal  chance  ;  which  is  not  the  case.  The  fact, 
therefore,  of  the  moral  progress  of  mankind  is 
evidence  of  the  prevailing  sympathy  with  the 
moral  aim,  not  indeed  of  every  aspect  of  the  en- 
vironment, but  of  the  environment  as  a  whole. 

The  second  form  of  the  belief  in  the  reality 
of  the  moral  universe,  the  sword  that  has  been 
bathed  in  heaven,  leads  to  another  question.  In 
what  sense  is  it  true  that  man's  moral  battle  is 
the  battle  of  the  universe?  In  the  sense  at 
least  that  nature  allows  the  moral  cause  to  gain 
through  the  historic  process.  Nature  is  both 
friendly  and  unfriendly  to  man.  Her  friendli- 
ness is  the  basis  of  life ;  her  unfriendliness  is 
one  of  the  impulses  that  lead  to  civilization.1 
Both  her  sympathy  and  her  antipathy  do  more 
and  better  for  the  wise  than  for  the  foolish. 
The  parable  of  the  two  builders  with  which  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  closes  is  an  illustration. 
Nature  in  her  true  character  enters  into  the 
mind  of  the  wise  builder ;  while  but  a  single 
aspect  of  her  order  reaches  the  understanding 
of  the  foolish  builder.  But  the  cosmos  is  not 
the  total  of  man's  environment.  It  is  essential 
that  one  should  ask  for  the  origin  of  man's 
1  The  New  Epoch  for  Faith,  chap.  iii.  pp.  102-124. 


THE  MORAL   UNIVERSE  325 

moral  outfit  and  inspiration.  Thomas  Huxley 
has  been  widely  praised  and  blamed  for  his  fa- 
mous Romanes  lecture  in  which  he  described 
man  and  nature  as  at  war  one  with  the  other. 
The  praise  is  deserved,  because  man  is  other  and 
higher  than  nature.  He  finds  his  programme 
not  in  the  procedure  of  nature,  but  in  his  own 
soul.  He  is  under  obligation  to  stand  upon  his 
humanity  and  for  the  preservation  of  his  human- 
ity to  defy  the  brutality  of  nature.  There  is  no 
procedure  more  insane  than  the  attempt  to  re- 
concile man's  world  with  the  worlds  beneath 
him.  If  man  is  a  mere  prolongation  of  nature, 
the  simple  pulling  out  of  another  part  of  the 
cosmic  telescope,  then  it  follows  that  man's  hu- 
manity, the  more  completely  it  is  developed,  is 
nothing  but  ornamentation,  perhaps  excrescence. 
In  setting  man  and  the  cosmos  in  essential 
antagonism  Huxley  has  done  well.  But  he  is 
clearly  open  to  blame  in  asserting  the  absolute 
antagonism  of  nature  and  human  ethics.  As 
nature  is  the  older  and  the  stronger,  ethics  could 
not  live  long  enough  to  define  the  issue  were 
nature  wholly  hostile.  Nature  is  not  the  source 
of  the  ethical  ideal,  but  it  is  clear  as  day  that 
to  some  extent  she  is  friendly  to  it.  And  even 
her  unfriendliness,  when  taken  in  connection 
with  the  total  human  environment  of  which 
nature  is  a  part,  may  be  an  essential  blessing. 


326  THE  UNIVERSAL  ULTIMATE 

The  unfriendliness  may  be  but  the  resisting  air 
to  the  bird,  to  borrow  Kant's  illustration.  That 
Huxley  is  still  more  absurdly  in  error  in  putting 
human  society  and  its  total  environment  at  war, 
is  obvious  the  moment  one  fixes  attention  upon 
the  moral  outfit  of  man.  That  moral  outfit  is 
not  self-originated.  If  it  is  largely  matter  of 
inheritance  it  is  still  essentially  a  superhuman 
bequest.  It  is,  therefore,  false  for  the  strong 
moral  character  to  cry  that  the  universe  is 
against  it.  To  the  extent  that  one's  ideal  is 
realizable,  one  must  feel  that  the  universe  is 
sympathetic.  The  will  that  holds  out  against 
evil,  the  love  that  shapes  the  home  to  a  new 
soul  of  worth,  the  moral  strength  that  is  not 
permanently  defeated,  that  easily  and  inevitably 
tends  toward  recovery  even  when  the  particular 
battle  has  gone  against  it,  and  that  upon  the 
whole  surely  advances  upon  its  ideal  ends,  should 
not  find  it  difficult  to  believe  in  the  reality  of 
the  moral  universe.  The  moral  world  of  man 
in  its  ideals,  endeavors,  and  achievements ;  in  its 
recovery  from  defeat  and  disaster ;  in  its  gain 
upon  its  adversary,  slow  as  a  glacier's  move- 
ment, but  like  it  resistless,  is  a  continuous  and 
unequivocal  witness  to  the  truth  of  the  moral 
character  of  his  environment.  If  man  and  the 
cosmos  are  in  conflict,  as,  under  certain  limita- 
tions, they  surely  are,  man  must  owe  to  some 


THE  MORAL   UNIVERSE  327 

source  his  militant  outfit,  and  the  pluck  and  suc- 
cess with  which  he  fights  his  battle.  In  the 
universe  somewhere  he  must  have  a  maker  and 
backer.  If  the  cosmos  is  representative,  man  is 
likewise  representative.  If  it  is  impossible  to 
unify  them  in  one  original  character,  it  is  at 
least  desirable  to  see  that  the  source  of  humanity 
is  as  much  a  part  of  the  universe  as  the  source 
of  the  cosmos.  Unless  he  is  self-created  the 
energy  and  wisdom  with  which  man  defies  his 
great  adversary  and  gains  his  ethical  ends  argue 
somewhere  a  superhuman  friendship.  The  fact 
is  that  the  moral  hero  is  the  expression  and  ser- 
vant of  the  moral  universe.  Cosmical  hostility 
to  man  is  but  a  single  aspect  of  reality  ;  and  it 
would  appear  to  be  the  gymnasium  in  which 
the  universal  moral  order  trains  its  hero.  The 
strong  will  is  the  assurance  of  superhuman  en- 
dowment and  support,  and  the  genuine  fighter 
for  righteousness  always  wields  a  sword  that  has 
been  bathed  in  heaven. 

The  third  form  of  the  belief  in  the  reality 
of  the  moral  universe  is  associated  with  Christ. 
The  perfect  man  is  the  complete  assurance  of 
the  equal  perfection  of  his  source  in  the  unseen. 
The  life  of  Jesus  taken  as  a  simple  fact  yields 
this  conclusion.  His  moral  outfit  must  be  ac- 
counted for ;  his  ethical  equipment  has  its  par- 
entage in  the  invisible.  His  original  moral 


328  THE  UNIVERSAL   ULTIMATE 

capacities  and  sensibilities,  the  ideal  that  through 
the  activity  of  his  nature  spontaneously  shapes 
itself,  the  will  that  is  equal  to  its  ethical  duty 
and  that  turns  vision  to  fact,  dream  to  reality, 
idea  to  truth  at  every  stroke  are  a  witness  for 
the  universe  of  the  most  impressive  order.  The 
section  of  the  universe  that  opposes  Jesus  must 
be  taken  in  connection  with  the  section  that  pro- 
duced him.  If  the  dualism  of  the  earth  must 
be  carried  into  the  heavens,  still  upon  this 
ground  a  universe  partly  ethical  is  better  than 
a  universe  wholly  hostile  to  supreme  ethical 
ends,  and  this  qualified  sympathy  with  right- 
eousness is  at  least  true  of  the  universal  order. 
The  advent  of  the  man  Jesus  Christ  is  the  at- 
testation of  this  conclusion. 

It  must  be  observed  that  this  supreme  man 
lives  out  of  the  unseen.  He  of  all  men  moves 
most  among  worlds  unrealized.  He  renews  his 
intelligence,  refreshes  his  heart,  reinvigorates  his 
will  through  communion  with  an  ideal  world. 
In  his  kingdom,  which  is  not  of  this  world,  he 
finds  the  truth  and  the  power  of  his  character. 
That  the  order  which  thus  renews  the  exhausted 
servant  of  righteousness,  supplies  him  with  meat 
and  drink,  and  becomes  the  source  of  his  aims 
and  his  powers  is  unreal,  is  simply  past  belief. 
The  universe  that  produces  Jesus  Christ  and 
that  supports  him  thereby  reveals  its  own 


THE  MORAL   UNIVERSE  329 

Christly  character.  The  advent  of  such  a  life 
opens  an  avenue  back  into  the  moral  life  of  the 
universe ;  the  persistence  of  such  a  soul  is  proof 
of  the  friendship  between  it  and  the  heart  of 
things.  The  moral  world  of  Jesus  Christ  is 
proof  of  the  reality  of  the  moral  universe. 

The  cause  of  Jesus  must  come  into  the  ac- 
count. At  first  it  commends  itself  to  the  mass 
of  his  countrymen ;  it  then  encounters  the  oppo- 
sition of  the  ruling  classes  ;  later  its  fate  seems 
to  be  sealed  in  the  death  of  its  great  originator 
and  advocate.  But  the  defeat  is  only  tempo- 
rary. The  scattered  disciples  return,  and  with 
an  invincible  courage  begin  to  carry  out  the 
programme  of  their  crucified  Master.  The  cause 
goes  forward  with  immense  power ;  and  the  story 
of  the  outrage  and  infamy  to  which  Jesus  had 
been  subjected  becomes  one  of  the  mightiest  of 
the  forces  that  rally  men  under  his  banner.  The 
destructive  force  has  become  conservative,  the 
engine  of  death  an  instrument  for  multiplying 
the  life  of  Christianity.  This  conversion  of 
enemies  to  friends,  of  ill  fortune  to  good  for- 
tune, of  the  cross  to  the  crown,  is  a  witness  to 
the  power  of  the  Gospel  and  to  the  sympathy 
of  the  universe.  The  history  of  Christianity  is 
the  history  of  the  moral  conquest  of  man,  and  it 
has  been  made  by  men  to  whom  the  unseen  was 
but  another  name  for  Infinite  friendship.  Thus 


330     THE  UNIVERSAL  ULTIMATE 

the  dream  of  the  solitary  Israelite  comes  true. 
It  was  of  a  ladder  that  rested  upon  the  earth 
and  against  heaven,  that  united  the  visible  and 
the  invisible,  that  constituted  a  highway  between 
the  moral  world  of  man  and  the  moral  universe. 
The  Israelite  did  not  know  that  his  own  soul  in 
its  moral  outfit  and  experience  was  that  ladder. 
The  presence  of  the  Divine  was  felt,  but  it  was 
not  understood.  And  the  same  remark  applies 
to  men  to-day.  There  is  still  the  dream  of  a 
real  connection  between  the  moral  order  here 
and  the  universal  order.  There  is  often  a  mys- 
tic consciousness  of  the  Divine  indwelling ;  but 
there  is  little  appreciation  that  man  himself 
stands  with  his  feet  on  the  earth  and  his  head 
in  heaven.  The  source  of  his  moral  endowment, 
ideal,  aspiration,  and  experience  is  in  the  eter- 
nal. Out  of  the  eternal  he  comes,  and  from  its 
fullness  he  renews  his  moral  being.  And  yet  he 
is  tempted  to  conclude  that  in  origin,  meaning, 
and  destiny  his  being  is  wholly  terrestrial.  He 
must  therefore  take  himself  at  his  best.  Christ 
is  man  at  his  best,  and  in  his  moral  endow- 
ment, ideal,  experience,  cause  and  its  fortune, 
the  heavens  are  open.  In  his  moral  world  the 
moral  universe  lives  and  works  and  attests  its 
supreme  and  transcendent  reality. 

The  question  of  the  moral  order  of  the  uni- 
verse is  indeed  vexed  with  mystery.     Like  the 


THE  MORAL   UNIVERSE  331 

earth  while  the  flood  lasted,  the  moral  structure 
of  the  universe  is  covered  by  the  inhumanity  of 
man  to  man,  and  by  the  stern  severity  of  man's 
natural  environment.  But  even  while  the  flood 
lay  upon  the  earth  Ararat  appeared,  and  there 
the  wandering  ark  rested.  Then,  too,  the  flood 
did  not  last  forever.  The  waters  began  to  abate  ; 
they  continued  to  abate;  finally  the  dry  land 
everywhere  appeared,  and  again  the  ancient  and 
everlasting  order  of  the  world  stood  forth.  Even 
in  the  worst  conditions  of  human  society  there 
have  been  discernible  here  and  there  a  soaring 
witness  to  the  moral  structure  of  the  universe. 
The  tops  of  the  mountains  cannot  long  remain 
submerged  ;  through  the  aspirations  of  human 
souls  the  deepest  becomes  the  highest.  And 
moral  evil  is  not  here  to  stay.  History  is  the 
record  of  the  great  abating  process  in  the 
mystery  of  iniquity.  It  is  man's  privilege  to 
accelerate  this  decrease,  and  to  receive  for  his 
recompense  the  vision  of  a  brighter  future  for 
his  kind  in  the  earth.  Some  day  the  flood  will 
be  gone,  and  men  will  build  an  altar  to  the 
Most  High  in  the  unveiled  and  glorious  presence 
of  the  moral  universe.  Then  will  be  verified 
the  sublime  insight  of  Jesus,  which  to-day  is  our 
comforting  and  yet  audacious  faith,  that  the 
universe  is  our  Father's  house. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE  :  GOD 


THERE  is  in  one  of  the  books  of  the  Old  'Testa- 
ment a  familiar  and  noble  parable  which  may 
fittingly  introduce  the  supreme  conception  to 
which  we  have  now  come.  The  command  is 
issued  to  the  prophet,  "  Go  forth,  and  stand 
upon  the  mount  before  the  Lord.  And,  behold, 
the  Lord  passed  by,  and  a  great  and  strong 
wind  rent  the  mountains,  and  brake  in  pieces 
the  rocks  before  the  Lord ;  but  the  Lord  was 
not  in  the  wind :  and  after  the  wind  an  earth- 
quake ;  but  the  Lord  was  not  in  the  earthquake : 
and  after  the  earthquake  a  fire ;  but  the  Lord 
was  not  in  the  fire  :  and  after  the  fire  a  still 
small  voice.  And  it  was  so,  when  Elijah  heard 
it,  that  he  wrapped  his  face  in  his  mantle,  and 
went  out,  and  stood  in  the  entering  in  of  the 
cave.  And,  behold,  there  came  a  voice  unto 
him,  and  said,  What  doest  thou  here,  Elijah  ?  " 
The  superficial  contrasts  in  this  scene  between 
the  tumultuous  and  the  silent  powers  of  the 

1  1  Kings  xix.  11-13. 


GOD  333 

world  have  been  often  noted.  We  do  not  get 
at  the  heart  of  the  parable  when  we  sink  deeper 
and  set  over  against  each  other  the  stormy 
movements  that  have  no  divinity  in  them  and 
the  peaceful  but  prevailing  ways  of  the  conscien- 
tious life.  The  fundamental  contrast  in  the 
story  is  between  the  inhumanity  and  the  hu- 
manity of  it,  between  the  noise  that  is  mere 
sound,  and  the  sound  that  is  a  voice.  Mean- 
ings, beautiful  meanings,  ethical  meanings, 
meanings  that  have  in  them  the  power  of  self- 
realization  and  that  are  centred  in  the  life  of  an 
Infinite  Person,  —  these  are  the  great  notes  in 
man's  consciousness  of  God.  Nature  is  without 
divinity  while  she  remains  mere  sound  and  fury. 
Not  until  she  becomes  law  does  she  witness  to 
anything  beyond  her  wilderness  of  facts.  Not 
until  man  becomes  a  conscious  ethical  order  does 
he  testify  of  the  Divine.  The  voice,  significant, 
lovely,  awful,  mighty,  personal,  is  the  symbol  for 
the  universe  filled  with  the  being  of  God. 

If  then  we  are  compelled  to  say  what  we  think 
God  is,  while  with  Simonides  we  may  beg  for 
more  and  more  time  that  our  answer  may  not  be 
altogether  foolish,  we  can  at  least  outline  a  reply. 
We  can  call  upon  the  intelligence,  the  aesthetic 
sense,  the  moral  instinct,  and  the  will  for  their 
report.  For  the  intellect,  God  is  the  final  mean- 
ing of  the  universe.  As  there  can  be  no  arch 


334  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

without  a  keystone,  so  there  can  be  no  final  in- 
telligibleness  to  the  universe  without  God.  He 
is  for  reason  the  last  and  highest  necessity. 
Without  him  we  cannot,  upon  any  subject,  think 
ourselves  into  permanent  light  and  peace.  And 
as  the  circle  is  more  than  the  sum  of  its  parts, 
as  it  is  the  meaning  of  this  sum,  so  God  is  more 
than  the  total  of  the  universe,  he  is  the  meaning 
of  this  grand  total.  For  the  aesthetic  sense,  God 
is  the  significant  beauty  of  the  universe.  Beauty 
is  the  spirit  that  lives  in  the  artistic  whole, 
whether  it  be  a  picture  or  a  poem,  a  statue  or  a 
building  or  a  symphony,  whether  it  be  nature  or 
human  character.  The  beauty  of  the  universe  is 
its  significant  loveliness,  and  for  the  artistic  sense 
its  significant  loveliness  is  God.  Thus  it  is  that 
all  high  art  is  an  appreciation  of  God,  and  the 
sincere  and  inspired  apostles  of  beauty  are 
prophets  of  the  Most  High.  For  conscience, 
God  is  the  final  moral  meaning  of  the  universe. 
The  distinction  between  good  and  evil,  right  and 
wrong,  has  its  last  explanation  in  his  nature. 
The  defeat  of  evil  and  the  triumph  of  goodness 
are  hopes  that  live  because  he  lives.  The  ethi- 
cal ideal  that  guides  the  historic  process  of  hu- 
man development  is  but  the  image  of  his  purpose. 
He  is  moral  fruition  for  the  eonian  promise  of 
man's  great  and  pathetic  struggle.  He  is  the 
moral  whole  in  which  all  the  broken  lives,  all  the 


GOD  335 

shattered  characters,  are  to  be  refitted.  God  is 
the  ideal  life  of  the  universe,  and  as  such  the 
ineffable  pledge  of  ideal  life  to  the  race  that  is 
made  in  his  image.  For  the  will,  God  is  the 
doer  of  righteousness,  the  bringer  to  event  and 
fact  of  the  ideal,  the  personal  grace  that  trans- 
forms the  soul  and  that  works  in  the  race  its 
renewal  in  righteousness.  Finally,  for  man, 
God  is  the  person  in  whom  the  ideal  meanings 
of  life  and  the  universe  are  gathered  and  authen- 
ticated, from  whom  comes  the  moral  assurance 
without  which  individuals  and  races  could  not 
continue  hi  the  strenuous  path  of  achievement, 
to  whom  men  look  as  aboriginal  inspiration, 
unerring  leader,  and  perfect  goal  to  the  ethical 
endeavor  of  the  world. 

Our  God,  then,  is  the  Person  whose  life  is  an 
infinite  content  of  meanings.  These  meanings 
are  in  man  and  man's  world ;  and  he  lifts  them 
into  an  Eternal  Person  as  their  logical  issue  and 
assurance.  This  is  the  absolute  ultimate  among 
the  conceptions  of  faith.  The  conceptions  of 
human  personality,  humanity  as  a  social  whole, 
optimism  as  the  truth  of  history,  Jesus  Christ 
as  the  supreme  religious  teacher,  the  universe  as 
moral  in  its  last  intention,  terminate  here.  They 
are  roofed  in  by  this  final  conception ;  they  are 
taken  up  into  the  Infinite  and  made  parts  in  an 
Ineffable  whole. 


336  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

Toward  this  great  conception  what  shall  be 
our  attitude  ?  Shall  it  be  simply  the  highest 
tradition  of  humanity,  the  supreme  thought  of 
mankind?  or  shall  we  affirm,  in  one  degree  or 
another,  its  validity  ?  Here  is  the  final  question 
of  faith.  Is  the  world's  best  conception  nothing 
but  a  conception,  or  is  it  a  verifiable,  and  there- 
fore a  real  conception  ?  The  answer  is  sure  to 
vary,  according  to  the  type  of  individual  experi- 
ence, from  the  extreme  of  agnostic  hesitation  to 
the  rapt  certainty  of  the  pure  in  heart.  Bacon 
thinks  that  no  opinion  about  God  is  better  than 
an  unworthy  opinion.  In  his  classification  su- 
perstition ranks  below  atheism.  Atheism  is 
simply  unbelief,  while  superstition  is  the  re- 
proach of  the  Deity.  A  parallel  to  this  mood 
is  found  in  Carlyle's  remark  that  it  is  better 
to  be  unremembered  than  to  be  misremembered. 
And  there  is  doubtless  some  reason  both  for 
Bacon's  thought  and  Carlyle's.  Still  unbelief 
is  barren,  while  superstition  implies  at  least  a 
beginning  in  faith.  Unworthy  opinions  of  God 
would  be  a  calamity  if  they  were  fixed  ;  but  they 
are  subject  to  enlightenment  and  complete  trans- 
formation. Unbelief,  therefore,  is  to  be  counted 
out,  in  dealing  with  the  supreme  conception  of 
faith,  as  unproductive,  as  falling  below  the  task 
of  verification.  Superstition  is  to  be  counted  in, 
as  being  a  genuine,  although  a  crude  attempt  at 
verifying  the  idea  of  God. 


GOD  337 

Beyond  this  is  the  mood  of  the  reasoner  in 
the  school  of  probability  whose  position  is  il- 
lustrated by  the  prayer  of  the  soldier  going 
into  battle :  "  O  God,  if  there  be  a  God,  save 
my  soul,  if  I  have  a  soul."  Here  the  supreme 
meaning  of  the  universe  and  of  human  life  is 
in  extreme  uncertainty.  God  and  the  soul  are 
to  this  mood  an  infinitely  vital,  but  an  ex- 
tremely uncertain  hypothesis.  The  honesty  and 
the  vitality  of  the  mood  are  its  prophetic  notes. 
In  contrast  with  this  is  the  prayer  of  another 
soldier :  "  O  God,  if  in  the  day  of  battle  I  for- 
get thee,  forget  not  thou  me."  The  ultimate 
meaning  of  the  universe  is  here  assured;  and 
in  that  assurance  the  uncertain  life  of  man  is 
covered  and  secured.  This  glimpse  at  the  va- 
riety of  moods  in  which  men  face  the  conception 
of  God  lends  intensity  to  the  question  which  we 
now  ask,  In  what  ways  may  the  idea  of  God 
be  seen  to  be  real,  and  further,  how  may  one 
gain  some  insight  into  the  nature  of  that  reality  ? 
Where  is  the  path  to  the  assurance  that  God 
lives,  and  where  is  the  mount  of  vision  from 
which  we  may  see  a  little  way  into  how  he  lives  ? 
We  now  face  the  question  of  the  existence  of 
God  and  of  the  mode  of  that  existence. 


338  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

II 

Every  true  idea  may  be  looked  at  in  two  ways. 
It  may  be  regarded  as  a  revelation  or  as  a  dis- 
covery, something  presented  to  the  human  mind 
or  an  achievement  by  it,  the  product  of  the 
Divine  appeal  or  the  outcome  of  man's  answer 
to  that  appeal.  It  may  be  said  that  light  re- 
veals itself  to  man  or  that  man  discovers  it,  that 
vision  is  the  effect  of  the  solar  stimulus  or  the 
consequence  of  response  to  it.  Either  statement 
is  true  ;  both  together  make  the  complete  truth. 
For  the  theist  every  valid  conception  is,  from 
the  Divine  side,  revelation,  and  from  the  human, 
discovery.  For  the  consistent  believer  in  God 
all  genuine  knowledge  is  an  apocalypse,  and  all 
real  apocalypse  is  knowledge.  The  mental  pro- 
duct called  knowledge  always  implies  two  things : 
the  foreign  stimulus  and  the  native  response. 
The  universe  acts  upon  the  mind  and  the  mind 
reacts  upon  the  universe,  and  the  product  is 
knowledge.  The  highest  action  of  the  universe 
upon  the  mind  is  the  appeal  of  God ;  the  highest 
reaction  of  the  mind  upon  the  universe  is  man's 
answer  to  God's  appeal.  Here  the  product  is 
valid,  it  is  according  to  the  real,  and  it  may  be 
properly  regarded  either  as  the  gift  of  God  or 
the  achievement  of  man.  It  is  both.  Until  this 
position  is  gamed  it  is  impossible  to  get  any 


GOD  339 

large  insight  into  the  way  in  which  the  race  has 
come  into  the  possession  of  its  highest  wisdom. 
When  revelation  is  wholly  non-human,  and 
knowledge  is  completely  non-Divine  the  moral 
and  spiritual  progress  of  man  becomes  a  hopeless 
puzzle.  Nothing  can  bridge  the  chasm  between 
the  bloodless  revelation  and  the  godless  know- 
ledge but  the  mechanism  of  miracle.  And  when 
miracle  is  thus  abused  its  real  value  is  sure  to 
be  swiftly  discredited.  The  fundamental  posi- 
tion of  faith  is  that  God  and  man  are  implicated 
each  in  the  other's  life,  as  Jacob  and  the  angel 
were  implicated.  They  are  interlocked  in  a  tre- 
mendous midnight  wrestle.  Everything  that 
God  bestows  man  wins,  and  everything  that  man 
wins  God  bestows.  It  is  true  that  the  angel 
came  to  the  Israelite  ;  the  priority,  therefore, 
belonged  to  him.  It  was  the  pressure  of  his 
mighty  arms  that  awoke  the  strength  and  that 
sustained  the  struggle  of  the  human  wrestler. 
Still  if  the  blessing  was  a  gift  it  was  also  an 
achievement ;  if  the  new  name  was  a  revelation 
it  was  likewise  a  discovery  ;  if  the  Divine  pre- 
sence disclosed  his  character,  as  midnight  wore 
on  to  daybreak,  the  exultant  human  antagonist 
felt  that  he  saw  God  face  to  face.  The  story  is 
a  parable  of  the  higher  and  properly  human  life 
of  the  race.  We  love  God  because  he  first 
loved  us.  The  priority  belongs  to  God.  Man's 


340  THE  ABSOLUTE   ULTIMATE 

activity  is  the  answer  to  God's  appeal.  And  yet 
the  daily  bread  for  which  men  pray  comes  as 
the  return  to  toil,  and  the  word  of  God  is  im- 
parted to  the  soul  whose  hunger  has  become 
great  through  struggle.  The  full  and  final 
truth  would  seem  to  be  that  God's  best  gifts 
come  through  man's  achievements,  and  man's 
best  achievements  are  God's  gifts. 

The  Christian  idea  of  God  is  a  revelation ;  it 
is  likewise  a  discovery,  and  it  is  the  human  side 
that  comes  up  for  emphasis  in  this  discussion. 
The  Christian  idea  of  God  is  man's  supreme 
achievement.  It  is  the  intellectual  and  spiritual 
summit  of  the  race.  The  discipline  among  the 
Hebrews  and  Greeks  that  prepared  the  way  for 
Christ's  conception  of  God  is  among  the  greatest 
things  in  human  history;  and  the  struggle 
through  which  men  are  led  to  the  ever  larger 
appreciation  of  Christ's  thought  is  of  inexpress- 
ible moment.  The  race  comes  to  its  best  in 
Jesus  Christ ;  in  him  the  eonian  struggle  rises 
into  monumental  achievement.  One  can  dream 
of  nothing  higher,  and  the  task  of  the  individual 
now  is  to  repeat  in  his  own  soul  more  and  more 
of  Christ's  ineffable  vision  of  God.  The  child 
repeating  in  broken  accents  and  amid  dim  appre- 
hensions at  its  mother's  knee  the  Lord's  Prayer, 
and  the  saint  uttering  life's  last  aspiration  in  the 
same  great  words  represent  the  sublimest  thing 


GOD  341 

in  the  soul,  the  endeavor  of  the  individual  man 
to  renew  the  vision  of  God  to  which  the  race  has 
risen  in  the  Divine  man. 

If  the  idea  of  God  is  the  supreme  achieve- 
ment of  man,  it  is  also  his  supreme  comfort. 
Without  God  life  is  too  much  for  the  genuine 
man.  It  is  infinite  and  it  cries  out  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  Infinite.  The  soldier  in  the  line  of 
fire  cannot  always  comprehend  the  purpose  of  the 
fight ;  the  passenger  on  the  ship  cannot  always 
see  the  highway  in  the  trackless  sea  ;  and  in  the 
same  way  comprehension  and  control  of  the  world 
is  for  the  wisest  out  of  the  question.  It  is  the 
supreme  solace  to  be  able  to  confess  God,  to 
allow  him  to  plan  and  command,  to  serve  under 
him,  to  sail  with  him,  to  turn  over  to  him  life 
with  its  thousand  problems  and  the  universe 
with  its  myriad  mysteries.  Indeed  it  would 
seem  that  the  sanity  of  the  educated  mind  is 
ultimately  dependent  upon  faith  in  God.  Know- 
ledge is  chiefly  a  revelation  of  the  Infinite.  With 
every  advance  of  science  the  universe  grows 
more  complicated.  The  torch  of  discovery  leads 
only  farther  in  upon  the  Eternal  mystery.  The 
shoreless  universe  surrounds  man,  and  as  he  ad- 
vances in  civilization  his  own  humanity  becomes 
to  him  of  infinite  concern.  Love  is  the  crown 
of  life,  and  as  it  comes  to  its  coronation  it  is 
with  the  gravest  solicitude.  To  allow  love  to 


342  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

take  its  way,  to  permit  the  heart  to  mellow,  to 
throw  out  a  thousand  tendrils,  to  involve  its 
peace  with  the  welfare  of  kindred,  with  the  hap- 
piness of  communities  and  peoples,  with  the  for- 
tune of  humanity,  is  to  run  a  fearful  risk.  Love 
must  go  mad  or  it  must  go  to  God.  Without 
God  humanity  must  break  down ;  it  cannot,  in 
a  godless  universe,  support  the  burden  of  its 
own  heart.  To  defeat  the  movement  that  means 
recurrence  to  the  condition  of  the  brute,  man 
lays  hold  upon  the  idea  of  God ;  to  escape  in- 
sanity he  makes  over  his  problem  to  the  Eternal 
mind.  Men  who  keep  their  humanity  and  yet 
deny  God  end  in  despair ;  and  men  who  deny 
God  and  who  do  not  fall  into  despair  shed  their 
humanity  as  mere  impedimenta  in  the  brutal 
march  of  existence. 

Normal  believers  in  God  do  not  begin  belief 
upon  the  finished  proof  of  the  reality  of  his 
being.  They  inherit  the  great  bequest;  they 
are  heirs  of  the  highest  wisdom  of  the  race  upon 
the  ultimate  meaning  of  the  universe.  They 
come  into  a  world  where  the  Christian  idea  of 
God  is  in  power  as  the  best  that  the  human 
intellect  can  do  upon  this  supreme  subject. 
The  Christian  idea  of  God  is  the  accepted  truth  ; 
education  applies  that  accepted  truth  to  the  new 
mind  and  the  new  generation.  The  devout 
mother's  piety  and  prayers  and  sacramental  love 


GOD  343 

weave  the  high  conception  into  the  warp  and 
woof  of  the  young  soul ;  the  sense  of  ancestry 
gives  power  to  belief.  God  is  our  fathers'  God. 
Social  feeling  is  a  tide  setting  toward  the  same 
shore.  The  young  are  drawn  into  faith  through 
sympathy  with  the  faithful.  Patriotism  makes 
for  the  same  goal.  The  God  of  Israel  was 
primarily  a  national  God,  and  it  was  because 
Jehovah  had  reality  for  the  nation  that  he  had 
infinite  significance  and  attraction  for  the  indi- 
vidual. The  religion  of  a  nation  tells  power- 
fully upon  its  patriotism.  The  nation  whose  his- 
tory and  ideals  are  essentially  Christian  draws 
its  lover  irresistibly  into  the  mood  of  reverential 
sympathy.  It  was  a  patriot  who  said  of  his 
people,  "  Thy  God  is  thy  glory."  Great  patriots 
from  Demosthenes  to  Gladstone,  in  a  succession 
but  rarely  broken,  have  been  carried  upon  the 
strong  current  of  their  sympathy  with  all  sides 
of  the  nation's  life  into  belief  in  the  national  re- 
ligion. Lincoln  delivering  his  second  inaugural 
stands  for  the  combined  patriotism  and  faith  of 
his  country.  The  battle  for  righteousness  on 
earth  supports  itself  through  belief  in  the  Eternal 
righteousness. 

Somewhere  in  this  process  of  education  the 
current  philosophy  of  theism  makes  its  power  felt. 
The  world  as  a  dependent  wonder  and  as  burning 
with  intelligence,  human  society  as  set  in  its 


344  THE  ABSOLUTE   ULTIMATE 

material  environment  for  high  ends,  and  human 
history  as  a  record  of  unimaginable  progress, 
impress  every  thoughtful  mind,  and  yield,  in 
one  form  or  another,  the  great  rational  vindi- 
cations of  the  inherited  belief.  Thus  when  the 
normal  believer  is  questioned  as  to  the  source 
of  his  belief  in  God  his  answer  should  be  that 
he  found  the  idea  in  power  upon  his  arrival 
here,  that  his  earliest  and  holiest  education  made 
it  part  of  his  being,  that  the  sense  of  ancestry, 
the  social  impulse,  the  patriotic  passion,  and 
finally  the  reigning  philosophy  confirmed  him  in 
his  new  possession.  The  normal  believer  finds 
God,  in  the  first  instance,  as  he  finds  his  mother. 
He  grows  into  the  feeling  and  the  perception 
that  this  person  is  his  mother  because  he  has 
been  trained  toward  this  issue  from  the  begin- 
ning. The  love  in  which  he  finds  himself  en- 
folded, the  ministry  that  unweariedly  waits  upon 
him,  the  presence  that  renews  his  life  and  peace 
and  that  daily  draws  out  into  stronger  and 
happier  forms  the  sense  of  sonhood,  carries  him 
into  the  unquestioning  belief  that  this  woman  is 
his  mother.  Should  he  doubt  the  reality  of  his 
assurance  he  would  instantly  suspect  himself  a 
fool.  His  faith  that  this  woman  is  his  mother 
rests  upon  the  witness  of  love  and  life.  He  was 
brought  up  to  think  that  way,  he  has  looked 
upon  the  world  from  this  centre  and  through 


GOD  345 

this  light,  and  that  he  is  right  in  his  attitude 
and  conviction  he  has  not  even  the  shadow  of  a 
doubt.  Theistic  education  is  simply  domestic 
education  in  its  widest  form.  The  idea  of  God 
is  the  enfolding  atmosphere  of  thought  and  feel- 
ing; it  modifies  all  early  associations  and  in- 
terests; it  stands  over  the  growing  life  in  an 
incessant  unconscious  ministry ;  it  is  the  undis- 
cerned  fountain  of  the  progressive  idealization 
of  existence,  the  centre  from  which  all  things 
are  regarded  and  the  light  in  which  they  are 
beheld.  The  consciousness  of  God  thus  goes 
with  the  normal  youth  as  the  day  goes  with 
him.  He  lives  in  it,  society  has  its  being  in  it, 
the  universe  moves  in  it.  Thus  close  to  the 
mind  of  youth  in  Christian  society  and  insep- 
arable from  it,  thus  inevitable,  universal,  and 
gloriously  real  is  the  conception  of  God. 

But  this  is  only  the  beginnings  of  faith.  The 
unconscious  psychology  of  belief  must  give  an 
account  of  itself  to  the  metaphysics  of  belief. 
Professor  James  profoundly  says  that  reasons 
shoidd  be  given  why  men  do  pray  rather  than 
why  they  should  pray.  Prayer  is  a  psycho- 
logical fact  and  should  be  made  to  yield  its  law 
and  logic.  Similarly  reasons  should  be  stated 
why  men  do  believe  in  God ;  but  this  belief  is  a 
psychological  fact.  The  idea  that  has  been  im- 
parted by  education  must  become  a  witness  for 


346  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

itself.  While  the  educational  aspect  and  the 
psychological  genesis  of  the  idea  are  profoundly 
important,  the  appeal  should  be  made  for  the 
great  idea  to  the  highest  tribunal.  The  believer 
in  God  must  test  his  inheritance  ;  that  which  he 
has  accepted  from  others  he  must  justify  to  him- 
self. The  highest  idea  of  faith  cannot  rest  upon 
the  grounds  of  tradition  and  education.  The  idea 
of  source  is  important,  the  idea  of  worth  and 
validity  is  infinitely  more  important.  The  day 
comes  when  the  believer,  knowing  well  the  origin 
of  his  faith  in  God,  begins  to  consider  the  truth 
of  it. 

What  is  the  proof  of  God's  being  to  which 
one  may  come  who  longs  to  rest  only  upon  ascer- 
tained reality  ?  The  answer  to  this  question  is 
both  close  at  hand  and  of  infinite  significance. 
God  is  known  as  the  ideal  strength  of  the  soul ; 
and  thus  he  comes  to  be  known  as  the  ideal 
strength  of  the  world.  The  Jewish  temple  had 
three  concentric  inclosures ;  the  court  of  the 
Gentiles,  the  holy  place,  and  the  holy  of  holies. 
The  traditional  philosophy  of  the  being  of  God, 
the  argument,  ontological,  cosmological,  teleolo- 
gical,  is  of  the  court  of  the  Gentiles.  It  is  a 
respectable  place,  and  the  crowd  is  great  and  im- 
pressive ;  but  it  is  not  even  in  the  temple.  It 
is  significant  as  an  outside  witness,  an  imposing 
introduction,  an  affecting  preliminary.  The  re- 


GOD  347 

ligious  history  of  mankind  at  its  best,  the  story 
of  apostles,  prophets,  martyrs,  and  saints,  the 
record  of  Christianity  in  the  nations,  is  the  holy 
place.  It  is  indeed  sacred  and  beautiful,  a  vast 
interior  witness  to  the  reality  of  the  living  God. 
But  beyond  it  is  the  supreme  sanctuary  of  the 
soul.  There  in  silence  and  awe  and  loneliness 
the  believer  sees  God  face  to  face.  Moses  on  the 
hillside  looking  upon  the  burning  bush,  Isaiah  in 
the  temple  in  the  hour  of  his  awful  vision,  Paul 
on  his  way  to  Damascus,  Luther  climbing  the 
papal  stairs  with  the  consciousness  of  direct 
access  to  God  making  him  wild  with  joy,  Ed- 
wards walking  on  the  banks  of  the  Connecticut 
full  of  the  sense  of  the  Eternal  beauty,  are  types 
of  what  is  meant.  Highest  of  all,  Jesus  in  the 
wilderness  temptation,  in  the  Tabor  transfigura- 
tion, in  the  Gethsemane  agony,  hi  the  hour  of 
mortal  passion  upon  the  cross,  is  the  revelation 
of  the  path  into  the  holy  of  holies. 

In  the  light  of  the  personal  ideal  God's  face 
first  appears.  Is  it  an  illusion  or  a  reality  ?  The 
answer  to  that  question  covers  the  fundamental 
issue  between  theism  and  atheism.  The  water- 
shed of  belief  and  unbelief  lies  in  the  difference 
of  attitude  toward  the  personal  ideal.  The  ne- 
gation of  God  occurs  first  of  all  in  the  spirit.  It 
is  not  a  speculative  movement ;  in  the  majority 
of  instances  it  is  not  a  conscious  mental  process. 


848  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

It  is  something  infinitely  deeper  and  closer  to  the 
heart  of  life.  It  is  primarily  a  practical  opera- 
tion, a  decision  and  bent  of  the  will,  a  cherished 
mood  of  the  spirit.  The  speculative  denial  of 
God  is  trivial  compared  with  the  vital  denial. 
The  philosophic  negative  rises  into  serious  im- 
portance only  as  the  reasoned  justification  of  the 
practical.  Life  is  not  only  deeper  than  thought ; 
it  is  also  the  source  of  one's  interest  in  thought. 
Atheism  means,  therefore,  in  its  profoundest  as- 
pect, settled  selfishness,  contented  earthliness, 
mad  desire  for  pleasure,  indifference  to  the  cries 
of  men  suffering  from  immemorial  inhumanities, 
the  conservation  of  the  pitiless  soul,  the  expul- 
sion of  the  ideal.  Obviously  this  sort  of  atheism 
is  compatible  with  any  amount  of  nominal  belief. 
It  is  a  beggarly  business  to  confine  attention  to 
the  speculative  denial  of  God  in  the  world  and 
ignore  the  only  supremely  serious  mood  both  in 
the  world  and  in  the  church,  the  practical  denial. 
The  legend  that  should  most  concern  the  true 
theist  is  that  which  is  written  upon  the  banner 
of  the  majority  of  believers  and  which  describes 
an  inward  personal  condition  :  "  Our  lamps  are 
gone  out." 

The  real  affirmation  of  God  begins  with  the 
serious  acknowledgment  of  the  ideal.  It  makes 
a  requisition  upon  the  personal  will.  It  calls  for 
honor  in  the  centres  of  baseness,  valor  in  the 


GOD  349 

heart  of  cowardice,  purity  in  the  midst  of  shame, 
self-sacrifice  in  the  ways  of  self-indulgence,  right- 
eousness in  an  environment  crowded  with  bribes 
to  unrighteousness.  Examples  are  here  essential 
to  clearness.  When  one,  in  the  strength  of  the 
ideal,  overcomes  the  incentive  to  cowardice,  like 
Jacob  upon  meeting  his  brother,  the  appeal  of 
shame  with  Joseph,  the  enticement  to  ease,  the 
deception  of  a  false  humility,  the  current  of  head- 
long error  as  in  the  instance  of  Moses,  of  Jere- 
miah, and  of  Paul;  when  one  goes  into  every 
sphere  of  life,  and  there,  in  the  name  of  the  ideal, 
meets  and  overwhelms  the  baseness,  sees  and 
struggles  to  do  the  duty,  notes  and  tries  to  improve 
the  privilege,  confesses  and  endeavors  to  carry  the 
burden,  feels  and  longs  to  transfigure  the  whole 
sorrowful  actual  of  existence,  he  is  in  the  holy  of 
holies.  One  is  then  coming  within  sight  of  the 
real  proof  of  God's  being.  The  midnight  wrestle 
of  the  ancient  wayfarer  is  repeated ;  once  more 
the  soul  is  interlocked  with  the  Infinite.  Life 
preserved,  advanced  in  spite  of  failure,  pushed 
on  through  penitence,  kept  in  forward  movement 
in  the  teeth  of  hostility,  carried  up  into  more  and 
better,  making  covenant  only  with  the  best,  like 
a  mountain-climber  looking  away  toward  the  sum- 
mit of  human  character  ;  life  thus  conserved,  in- 
creased, guided,  and  crowned  with  hope  goes  in 
the  strength  of  the  undeniable  God.  The  grace 


350  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

by  which  the  human  spirit  gains  upon  its  moral 
goal  is  the  grace  of  God.  The  proof  of  God's 
existence  that  is  final  (for  the  fact)  is  given  with 
every  genuine  moral  achievement.  The  victo- 
rious moral  will,  marching  in  the  light  of  the 
moral  ideal,  is  the  great  witness  for  God. 

The  witness  for  God  is  open  to  increase.  The 
best  is  yet  to  be.  Insight  is  not  the  first  but 
the  final  mood  of  the  doer  of  righteousness. 
The  philosophy  of  the  divine  life  in  man  is  the 
issue  of  that  life.  Hegel's  beautiful  comparison 
of  philosophy  to  the  owl  of  Minerva  should  be 
freed  from  its  note  of  sadness.  It  is  true  that 
the  day  is  far  spent,  that  it  is  towards  evening 
as  it  deepens  into  dusk  before  the  divine  bird 
sets  out  upon  her  flight.  But  to  this  the  day 
has  come ;  this  is  its  meaning  and  consecration. 
There  need  be  no  sigh  that  the  morning  was 
unconscious  of  the  issue  to  which  it  was  sure  to 
come  in  the  evening.  The  owl  of  Minerva  was 
present  from  the  beginning,  and  although  seen 
only  in  the  evening,  she  gave  divinity  to  the 
whole  day.  It  is  true  that  life  must  be  lived 
before  philosophy  can  do  its  perfect  work.  But 
her  power  is  in  the  entire  process  of  the  strenu- 
ous career.  She  herself  is  withheld  as  the  in- 
finite reward  of  the  servant  of  the  ideal.  She  is 
the  sunset  into  which  the  day  struggles  through 
all  its  stress  of  storm.  The  man  who  as  son  and 


GOD  351 

brother,  friend  and  lover,  husband  and  father, 
citizen  and  sharer  in  the  world's  industry,  ser- 
vant of  his  kind  and  of  the  Infinite,  has  gone  in 
the  strength  and  holy  passion  of  the  ideal  comes 
to  his  best  faith  at  the  last.  The  exceptions  are 
owing  to  physical  causes.  For  the  normal  be- 
liever the  full  truth  is  the  glorious  sundown  at 
the  earthly  limit  of  love  and  service. 

Here  is  the  real  beginning  of  the  theistic 
argument.  Man  must  find  God  in  himself  if 
he  would  find  God  beyond  himself.  It  is  with 
theism  as  Plato  found  it  to  be  with  righteous- 
ness. For  the  sake  of  weak  eyes  it  is  useful  to 
look  at  righteousness  as  it  is  written  in  large 
style  in  the  order  of  the  ideal  state ;  but  this  is 
only  introductory  to  the  final  vision  of  right- 
eousness as  it  lives  in  the  soul  of  the  ideal  man. 
There  one  finds  the  true  ethical  beginning  and 
the  standard  to  which  one  must  ever  return  for 
light.  It  is  the  man  who  has  found  God  in  his 
own  moral  life,  who  in  following  the  ideal  of 
personal  righteousness  has  become  conscious  of 
superhuman  support  who  is  best  able  to  see 
whatever  divine  meaning  there  may  be  in  nature 
and  in  human  history.  The  moral  idealist  is  a 
being  of  ends,  of  ends  that  are  of  infinite  worth 
and  that  are  in  progressive  realization.  He  is 
on  his  way  home  and  the  highest  is  his  place 
of  rest.  From  this  luminous  interior  he  looks 


352  THE  ABSOLUTE   ULTIMATE 

upon  nature,  as  one  looks  upon  the  cathedral 
window  from  the  inside ;  he  notes  colors,  de- 
signs, figures,  symbols,  and  great  meanings  that 
do  not  exist  for  the  person  who  is  without  moral 
purpose,  and  who  looks  upon  the  wonder  from 
the  outside.  Evolution  would  seem  to  be  a  true 
reading  of  natural  history.  It  is  natural  history 
read  in  the  light  of  its  end.  Bacon  deprecated 
the  presence  of  final  causes  in  science ;  but 
modern  science  is  chiefly  the  interpretation  of 
the  facts  of  nature  upon  the  assumption  of  ends. 
The  movement  of  the  cosmos  from  the  fire  mist 
to  the  heaven  of  modern  astronomy,  of  life  in 
the  earth  in  its  primitive  form  to  man,  can  be 
understood  only  by  the  idealist.  Nature  as 
idealist  is  knowable  only  to  man  the  idealist. 
Development  in  the  cosmos  means  most  to  the 
person  who  is  undergoing  in  his  own  life  the 
largest  and  noblest  development.  He  who  in 
his  personal  evolution  has  seen  God  face  to  face 
is  best  qualified  to  trace  his  footsteps  in  rocks 
and  stars,  and  to  read  his  mind  in  the  growth 
of  the  living  world.  Nature  at  first  means  no- 
thing to  the  mind.  It  is  man's  vast  and  dumb 
brother ;  and  after  the  human  spirit  has  learned 
to  think  and  speak,  the  next  duty  is  to  unseal 
the  lips  of  nature.  The  great  wonder  is  finally 
known  as  living  through  personal  life,  as  having 
behind  it  a  mighty  history  through  personal  his- 


GOD  353 

tory,  as  beating  forward  in  a  great  silent  aspira- 
tion and  setting  with  inevitable  strength  toward 
some  far-off  goal  through  the  personal  move- 
ment upon  the  moral  ideal.  Nature  in  human 
thought  necessarily  becomes  a  kind  of  larger 
and  lower  man  ;  it  is  the  name  for  the  life  that 
seeks  through  an  infinite  aggregate  of  forms  re- 
newed and  higher  expressions  of  itself.  And 
because  nature  is  a  life  advancing  upon  ends 
that  are  upon  the  whole  successively  higher,  it 
becomes  a  witness  for  the  Intelligence  that  is 
revealed  as  Moral  Intelligence  in  the  history  of 
the  faithful  soul. 

Human  history  is  significant  only  from  the 
inside.  One  may  as  reasonably  expect  a  child 
to  construe  a  passage  from  Thucydides  as  to 
look  for  an  appreciation  of  the  theistic  value  of 
history  from  a  man  who  honestly  entertains  no 
exacting  moral  ideal.  The  world  is  appreciable 
on  all  sides  only  through  the  appropriate  powers. 
For  the  blind  there  is  no  color  even  when  the 
earth  is  dyed  in  the  hues  of  sunset.  For  the 
deaf  there  is  no  music  even  when  the  streets  are 
full  of  the  cheerful  speech  of  man  to  man,  even 
when  the  summer  woods  are  one  great  sym- 
phony. The  earth  is  out  there,  but  for  the  ap- 
preciation of  it  one  must  bring  the  senses  in 
their  keen  integrity.  Philosophy  is  here  as  the 
great  and  growing  world-thought  of  mankind ; 


354  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

art  is  here  as  the  monumental  expression  of 
beauty ;  the  accumulated  intellectual  and  spirit- 
ual treasure  of  the  race  is  here ;  and  yet  the 
treasure  can  be  appreciated  only  when  the  indi- 
vidual brings  his  awakened  intelligence  to  bear 
upon  it.  Human  history  is  the  blank  landscape 
of  the  blind,  the  mute  world  of  the  deaf,  the 
unsuspected  intellectual  treasure  of  the  race  to 
the  dormant  mind,  until  the  moral  ideal  takes 
possession  of  the  individual  soul.  The  theistie 
inference  from  the  annals  of  mankind  can  be 
intelligently  drawn  only  by  the  man  who  lives 
in  the  stress  of  the  moral  process.  It  is  the 
brook  that  may  understand  the  river ;  both  have 
source  and  movement  and  end.  It  is  the  inland 
sea  that  may  appreciate  the  ocean ;  both  have 
tides  and  answer  to  the  same  ruling  power.  It 
is  the  individual  fighter  for  righteousness  who 
sees  the  reality  of  the  racial  fight  for  the  same 
end ;  and  as  he  knows  that  the  single  combat  is 
in  the  light  and  strength  of  the  Divine  ideal  he 
is  able  to  believe  that  the  universal  battle  has 
its  impulse  and  aim  from  this  high  presence. 
The  soul  with  its  own  epochs  carries  the  key  to 
the  epochs  of  history.  It  is  from  the  elevation 
to  which  one  is  lifted  by  the  Lord  that  one  is 
able  to  survey  the  land  that  is  promised  to  the 
Lord's  people. 

Upon  this  question  of  the  proof  of  God's  ex- 


GOD  355 

istence  the  conclusion  is  that  all  theistic  argu- 
ment that  is  worth  anything  begins  in  the  moral 
history  of  the  individual  man.  Without  this 
interior  personal  discovery  of  God  the  discus- 
sions about  his  being  are  infinite  in  their  dreary 
unproductiveness.  The  key  to  the  universe  lies 
in  personality,  otherwise  there  is  no  key.  The 
key  to  the  moral  universe  is  in  the  moral  per- 
sonality, or  again  there  is  no  key.  Nature  is 
but  a  sphinx,  and  human  history  a  tragedy  until 
the  eyes  of  the  lover  and  doer  of  righteousness 
rest  upon  them.  It  is  the  God  within  who  finds 
the  God  without,  and  in  the  calling  of  deep  to 
deep  the  voice  that  breaks  the  silence  and  that 
begins  and  that  sustains  the  divine  dialogue  is 
the  voice  of  the  dutiful  soul.  The  philosophical 
argument  for  the  being  of  God  is  but  the  render- 
ing, in  universal  form,  of  the  intellectual  and 
moral  demand  of  the  personal  spirit ;  and  where 
this  demand  does  not  exist  the  scientific  process 
of  theistic  proof  awakens  no  response.  The 
pursuit  of  the  moral  ideal  is  the  path  to  cer- 
tainty about  God.  Where  the  universe  has  be- 
come helper  in  the  struggle  to  overtake  the 
moral  best,  one  can  run  no  risk  in  calling  the 
universe  God.  And  where  one  is  a  successful 
pursuer  of  ideal  ends,  one  can  appreciate  nature 
in  so  far  as  she  lives  in  the  pursuit  of  an  ideal 
end  ;  one  can,  further,  appreciate  the  grand  his- 


356  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

toric  movement  of  mankind  upon  an  ideal  end. 
Thus  ideal  ends  explain  both  nature  and  human 
history,  and  God  is  given  in  the  grand  pursuit, 
in  the  strength  that  makes  it  possible,  in  the 
dfchievement  that  makes  it  noble,  and  yet  more 
in  the  light  that  guides  it. 

"  Not  of  the  sunlight, 
Not  of  the  moonlight, 
Not  of  the  starlight ! 
O  young  mariner, 
Down  to  the  haven, 
Gall  your  companions, 
Launch  your  vessel, 
And  crowd  your  canvas, 
And,  ere  it  vanishes 
Over  the  margin, 
After  it,  follow  it, 
Follow  The  Gleam." 

ni 

The  existence  of  God  is  thus  an  assurance  to 
man  through  man ;  the  reality  of  God  is  a  dis- 
covery by  man  for  man.  The  ultimate  position 
is  that  God  is  the  necessity  of  humanity.  If  we 
did  not  need  him,  we  should  not  seek  him.  If 
God  were  not  essential  to  man's  life,  even  were 
his  existence  forced  upon  the  mind,  man  would 
take  no  vital  interest  in  him.  The  God  who 
does  not  answer  to  man's  needs  can  never 
satisfy  man's  reason.  Reason  is  the  supreme 
servant  of  life,  and  in  the  service  of  life  reason 
hears  the  footsteps  of  the  advancing  God,  and 


GOD  357 

goes  onward  to  meet  him.  Power  may  account 
for  much,  wisdom  and  power  may  account  for 
more ;  but  both  together  cannot  account  for 
man.  It  should  always  be  borne  in  mind  that 
the  quest  for  God  is  essentially  the  search  for 
the  full  account  and  final  meaning  of  human 
life.  Before  they  can  suffice  as  the  maker  of 
man  wisdom  and  power  must  rise  into  love.  For 
the  genuine  life  of  mankind  is  love ;  as  it  comes 
to  itself,  that  life  comes  to  love.  The  love  of 
man  seeks  for  the  origin  of  itself  in  the  love  of 
God. 

The  mode  of  the  Divine  existence  is  a  ques- 
tion raised  by  the  claim  that  his  character  is 
love.  The  series  of  questions  covered  by  the 
symbol  "  The  Trinity  "  concern  the  moral  being 
of  God.  We  have  a  social  humanity.  Have 
we  a  social  Deity  as  the  ground  of  it  ?  In  this 
social  humanity  the  individual  person  is  not 
only  no  obstruction  ;  he  is  essential.  Humanity 
is  a  fellowship  of  personal  spirits.  Is  there  any 
hint  here  as  to  the  nature  of  the  archetypal 
fellowship  behind  humanity.  Out  of  what,  out 
of  whom,  did  the  social  whole  constituted  by  the 
sum  of  human  persons  come  ?  Has  the  human 
effect  anything  to  say  concerning  the  Divine 
cause  ?  Further,  social  humanity  is  an  altruistic 
humanity.  Genuine  egoism  is  perfected  through 
genuine  altruism.  Selfhood  comes  to  its  best 


358  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

in  love ;  love  is  a  mood  of  man  in  the  great 
organism  of  society.  If  you  take  away  the 
social  life  of  the  individual  would  love  remain  ? 
Is  not  man  the  lover,  one  among  many,  one  who 
shares  the  life  of  others,  one  whose  life  is  shared 
by  others  ?  Is  not  love  dependent  upon  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  individual,  and  of  the  society  in 
which  he  lives  ?  Without  the  individual  there 
could  be  no  love ;  of  that  we  are  clear.  Is  it 
not  equally  clear  that  without  society  there 
could  be  no  love  ?  A  being  out  of  all  relation 
to  other  lives,  with  no  other  beings  to  whom  he 
can  stand  related,  who  is  neither  son  nor  hus- 
band nor  father  nor  brother  nor  citizen  nor 
child  of  God,  could  never  become  a  lover. 
Lover  means  altruist,  and  therefore  the  closed 
egoist  excludes  the  lover. 

This  is  the  truth  about  man.  Humanity  is  a 
social  whole  made  of  individual  persons  in  one 
vast  intercommunion  of  being.  Humanity  is 
created  on  the  altruistic  plan,  and  the  education 
of  life  consists  in  taming  its  wild  egoism,  in 
realizing  the  genuine  selfhood  of  the  individual 
through  respect  for  others,  through  service,  fel- 
lowship, and  love.  Has  this  truth  about  the 
nature  of  man  anything  to  tell  us  about  the 
possible  nature  of  God  ?  If  God  is  the  Lord 
and  Giver  of  our  humanity,  can  we  in  any  mea- 
sure divine  the  character  of  the  Giver  from 


GOD  359 

the  nature  of  his  gift  ?  Here  is  our  problem  : 
we  seek  for  the  God  who  is  the  full  and  final 
account  of  humanity.  Here  is  our  method  in 
dealing  with  the  problem  :  we  find  the  essential 
nature  of  humanity,  and  we  try  to  read  the  char- 
acter of  God  through  that  essential  humanity. 

I  am  aware  that  the  conception  of  the 
Divine  nature  for  which  the  Trinity  is  the 
symbol  is  widely  held  to  be  a  hopeless  tangle 
of  contradictions.  I  am  aware  that  it  is  by 
many  considered  the  supreme  absurdity  of  theo- 
logy. In  his  comments  upon  Berkeley's  "  Siris," 
John  S.  Mill  remarks  that  the  treatise  begins 
with  Tar-water  and  ends  with  the  Trinity,  and 
he  adds  that  the  sections  on  Tar-water  are  the 
best  part  of  the  work.  This  remark  of  Mill  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  in  his  judgment  tar-water 
had  some  value  for  afflicted  humanity,  while  the 
Trinity  had  none.  But  for  a  popular  exhibition 
of  the  supposed  absurdities  of  this  doctrine  we 
must  go  to  the  pages  of  Matthew  Arnold.  In 
"  Literature  and  Dogma  "  this  famous  passage 
occurs  on  the  Trinity  as  seen  in  the  doctrine  of 
justification.  "  In  imagining  a  sort  of  infinitely 
magnified  and  improved  Lord  Shaftesbury,  with 
a  race  of  vile  offenders  to  deal  with,  whom  his 
natural  goodness  would  incline  him  to  let  off, 
only  his  sense  of  justice  will  not  allow  it ;  then 
a  younger  Lord  Shaftesbury,  on  the  scale  of  his 


360  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

father  and  very  dear  to  him,  who  might  live  in 
grandeur  and  splendor  if  he  liked,  but  who  pre- 
fers to  leave  his  home,  to  go  and  live  among  the 
race  of  offenders,  and  to  be  put  to  an  ignomin- 
ious death,  on  condition  that  his  merits  shall 
be  counted  against  their  demerits,  and  that  his 
father's  goodness  shall  be  restrained  no  longer 
from  taking  effect,  but  any  offender  shall  be 
admitted  to  the  benefit  in  simply  pleading  the 
satisfaction  made  by  the  son ;  and  then,  finally, 
a  third  Lord  Shaftesbury,  still  on  the  same 
high  scale,  who  keeps  very  much  in  the  back- 
ground, and  works  in  a  very  occult  manner,  but 
very  efficaciously  nevertheless,  and  who  is  busy 
in  applying  everywhere  the  benefits  of  the  son's 
satisfaction,  and  the  father's  goodness ;  in  an 
imagination,  I  say,  such  as  this,  there  is  nothing 
degrading,  and  this  is  precisely  the  Protestant 
story  of  Justification.  And  how  awe  of  the  first 
Lord  Shaftesbury,  gratitude  and  love  toward 
the  second,  and  earnest  cooperation  with  the 
third  may  fill  and  rule  men's  hearts  so  as  to 
transform  their  conduct  we  need  not  go  about 
to  show,  for  we  have  all  seen  it  with  our  eyes. 
But  after  all,  the  question  sooner  or  later  arises : 
Is  it  sure  ?  Can  what  is  here  assumed  be  veri- 
fied ?  And  this  is  the  real  objection  ...  to  the 
Protestant  doctrine  as  a  basis  for  conduct,  not 
that  it  is  a  degrading  superstition,  but  that  it 


GOD  361 

is  not  sure;  that  it  assumes  what  cannot  be 
verified."  In  plain  words  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  in  itself  and  in  its  operation  may  be 
classed  as  a  wholesome  myth  or  legend.  It  is 
not  a  degrading  superstition ;  but  it  is  the  pro- 
duct of  the  metaphysical  imagination  taken  as 
fact,  as  exact  truth.  The  fine  sarcasm  of  the  de- 
scription makes  unnecessary  any  violent  repudia- 
tion of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  inherently 
absurd.  It  is  the  wholesome  legend  of  the  three 
Lord  Shaftesburys.  For  many  years  among 
"  devout  women  "  and  among  men  who  are  like 
them  this  legend  will  pass  for  truth.  For  them 
a  difficulty  of  the  intelligence  does  not  count. 
"  To  think  they  know  what  passed  in  the  Coun- 
cil of  the  Trinity  is  not  hard  to  them;  they 
could  easily  think  they  knew  what  were  the 
hangings  of  the  Trinity's  council-chamber."  l 

Disregard  for  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is 
not  confined  to  writers  like  Mill  and  Arnold. 
There  are  many  teachers  of  Christianity  to  whom 
it  is  only  an  extra-Christian  speculation,  wholly 
foreign  to  the  sublime  but  simple  ethical  idealism 
of  the  Gospel.  Others  there  are  who  do  not 
object  to  the  Trinity  on  the  ground  of  its  alien 
origin,  but  because  it  is  devoid  of  meaning  for 
the  moral  life  of  mankind.  In  an  able  and  in- 
teresting paper  in  the  "  Independent,"  Dr.  Ward 

1  Literature  and  Dogma,  pp.  278-280. 


362  THE  ABSOLUTE   ULTIMATE 

writes :  "  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  not 
essential  to  Christianity  because  it  has  nothing 
to  do  with  love."  1  If  this  objection  were  valid, 
if  indeed  the  reality  for  which  the  word  Trinity 
stands  had  nothing  to  do  with  love,  I  for  one 
should  have  no  further  interest  in  it.  It  is 
because  I  believe  that  the  moral  life  of  God  is 
bound  up  with  the  reality  of  which  the  Trinity 
is  the  symbol  that  I  hold  it  to  be  essential  to 
an  enduring  faith.  It  is  because  I  believe  the 
nature  of  God  as  conceived  by  the  Trinity  to 
be  the  ground  of  the  moral  life  of  man  that  I 
regard  it  as  of  fundamental  moment.  Doubt- 
less the  Trinity  has  been  discussed  as  if  it  were 
merely  an  intellectual  puzzle.  It  has  been  taught 
as  an  absolute  mystery  into  which  human  reason 
could  not  advance  a  step.  Teachers  of  the  Trin- 
ity and  historians  of  ecclesiastical  history  have 
too  often  been  content  to  show  that  the  doctrine 
had  its  origin  in  the  necessity  of  making  room 
for  Christ  in  the  Godhead,  and  in  the  further 
necessity  of  lifting  into  the  heart  of  God  the 
transforming  spirit  of  the  Christian  religion. 
These  contentions  of  learned  men  are  no  doubt 
in  a  great  measure  true.  When  it  is  added  that 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  an  evolution  of 
thinkers  who  construed  Christianity  in  terms 
of  Greek  philosophy,  who  looked  upon  the  new 
1  Independent,  June  12,  1902. 


GOD  363 

religion  that  had  risen  like  a  second  sun  upon 
midday,  through  the  colored  windows  of  Hel- 
lenic civilization,  something  important  is  added 
to  the  history  of  the  origin  of  the  doctrine.  The 
question  of  origin  is  important,  and  yet  it  is  sub- 
ordinate. The  great  question  is  that  of  meaning, 
and  of  truth.  The  deepest  objection  to  Professor 
Paine's  book  on  "  The  Evolution  of  Trinitarian- 
ism  "  is  that  he  regards  his  subject  so  much  as 
a  field  for  dialectical  sport,  and  that  so  far  as  I 
now  recall  he  does  not  devote  a  single  page  to 
the  meaning  of  the  doctrine.  What  was  Athana- 
sius  contending  for?  What  was  the  human  worth 
of  the  conception  for  the  sake  of  which  he  stood 
against  the  world  ?  Behind  the  dialectical  move- 
ment there  must  be  the  human  sense  of  meaning, 
of  worth,  of  truth.  To  play  off  the  whole  sub- 
ject as  the  history  of  the  vain  and  even  ridicu- 
lous endeavor  to  hold  to  three  Gods,  and  yet  to 
claim  that  these  three  are  one,  may  issue  in 
an  entertaining,  but  surely  not  in  a  profound  or 
profitable  book.  Barren  discussions  are  plenti- 
ful upon  every  article  of  the  Christian  creed.  It 
needs  no  ghost  to  tell  us  that.  Much  like  the 
wilderness  with  no  hope  of  ever  bursting  into 
bloom  are  vast  sections  of  the  Trinitarian  dis- 
pute. We  must  not,  however,  doom  a  subject 
by  judgment  upon  its  barren  treatment.  Nor 
because  the  history  of  discussion  upon  the  Trin- 


364  THE  ABSOLUTE   ULTIMATE 

ity  shows  an  endless  seesaw  between  three  Gods 
and  one  God  in  three  modes  of  manifestation 
will  a  lover  of  truth  turn  away  from  the  alluring 
theme.  He  will  insist  upon  the  search  for  the 
meaning  of  this  world-old  discussion ;  more  im- 
portant still,  he  will  seek  the  reality  behind  the 
symbol.  This  is  my  purpose.  I  do  not  care  for 
a  word  or  a  symbol  in  itself  considered ;  but  I 
am  convinced  that  underneath  this  word  and  sym- 
bol is  a  truth  without  which  the  life  of  faith 
cannot  last. 

What  is  that  truth?  The  essentially  social 
nature  of  Gbd ;  the  faith  that  he  is  in  his  inner- 
most being  an  eternal  family.  The  Trinity  is 
a  word,  and  it  should  call  up  that  which  stands 
behind  it.  The  discussion  about  three  distinct 
persons  in  one  God  and  a  God  in  absolute  sim- 
plicity of  being  should  reduce  itself  to  its  ulti- 
mate form.  There  is  little  to  be  gained  from  a 
new  edition  of  the  old  Trinitarianism  and  the 
old  Unitarianism.  There  is  little  profit  in  a 
mere  rehearsal  of  the  Nicene  and  the  Ante- 
Nicene  dispute.  Dialectics  have  exhausted  their 
interest,  if  not  their  power,  in  the  formal  treat- 
ment of  the  subject ;  and  history  has  told  her 
accurate  and  impartial  tale  a  hundred  times. 
The  old  battlefield  has  been  pretty  much  deserted 
by  both  parties,  one  might  almost  say  by  all 
parties.  The  Trinitarian  tradition  seems  to  me 


GOD  365 

of  immeasurable  worth ;  but  the  Trinitarian  dis- 
cussion must  take  on  new  form.  It  must  reduce 
itself  to  a  consideration  of  the  comparative  worth 
of  the  two  competing  conceptions  of  the  Divine 
nature  —  the  unitary  and  the  social.  This  is  the 
fountain  of  our  interest  in  the  ancient  debate. 
We  are  brought  by  it  face  to  face  with  the  ques- 
tion whether  God  is  a  bare  individual  or  a  so- 
ciety in  himself.  A  psychology  of  God,  or  a 
definition  of  the  mode  of  the  Divine  being,  I 
regard  as  impossible ;  but  this  does  not,  in  my 
judgment,  close  the  debate.  It  simply  puts  limi- 
tations upon  it  and  gives  it  a  new  and  more  fruit- 
ful direction.  We  are  thrown  back  upon  the 
question,  Which  conception  of  God,  the  unitary 
or  the  social,  is  for  mankind  the  freer  from  em- 
barrassment and  of  the  greater  worth  ? 

It  is  conceded  among  believers  that  man  is 
for  man  the  type  of  God,  in  other  words  that 
God  is  an  infinite  man.  Here  the  assumption 
is  that  the  best  possible  conception  of  God  is  of 
an  ideally  perfect  man  set  free  from  all  limita- 
tions. And  without  doubt  this  is  the  path  to 
the  highest  thought  of  God.  That  it  should 
appear  in  this  way  to  the  profoundest  theistic 
thinkers  is  another  witness  to  the  fundamental 
influence  of  Christianity  upon  philosophical  dis- 
cussion. For  the  idea  that  man  plus  infinity  is 
God,  if  it  does  not  originate  hi  the  announce- 


366  THE  ABSOLUTE   ULTIMATE 

ment  that  God  minus  infinity  is  in  the  man  Je- 
sus Christ,  is  at  least  made  living  and  fruitful 
by  it.  Christianity  is  the  interpretation  of  God 
through  the  perfect  man,  and  the  exaltation  of 
man  through  this  interpretation.  The  Master 
says  "  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Fa- 
ther," J  and  the  disciple  responds  "  Now  are  we 
children  of  God."  2  The  question  before  us  is, 
therefore,  what  does  the  building  of  the  idea  of 
God  after  the  pattern  of  the  perfect  man  imply 
as  to  the  mode  of  the  Divine  existence  ?  Is  God 
a  bare  unit,  a  pure  individual,  or  is  he  social, 
triune  in  his  being  ? 

To  superficial  thinking  the  bare  unitary  con- 
ception of  God  seems  to  be  the  simplest  and  the 
most  consistent.  The  standard  of  simplicity  and 
consistency,  be  it  remembered,  is  man.  No  man, 
it  is  contended,  is  really  three  in  one.  Every 
man  is  a  unit,  and  if  man  is  the  guide  to  God, 
God  must  be  a  pure  individual.  The  Trinitarian 
conception  of  three  persons  in  one  God  seems 
to  involve  a  fatal  departure  from  the  human 
type.  It  appears  to  many  vigorous  and  devout 
minds  to  issue  in  a  Divine  monstrosity.  They 
tell  us  that  their  hearts  are  often  moved  by 
Trinitarian  passion,  but  their  heads  always  rebel 
against  Trinitarian  mysticism  and  monstrosity. 
Let  these  noble  rebel  heads  be  turned  for  a 

1  John  xiv.  9.  2  1  John  iii.  2. 


GOD  367 

moment  upon  the  simplicity  and  consistency  of 
the  unitary  idea  of  God.  Consider  here  three 
things  ;  the  individualist  God  and  knowledge ; 
the  individualist  God  and  love ;  the  individual- 
ist God  and  the  social  humanity  of  which  he  is 
assumed  to  be  the  full  and  adequate  account. 

The  unitary  God  is  a  being  by  himself.  He 
is  the  shadow  expanded  to  infinity  of  the  human 
individual.  The  man  who  thinks  personality 
complete  in  itself  apart  from  other  personalities, 
to  whom  it  is  related  and  in  whom  it  finds  moral 
h'fe,  takes  this  distorted  image  of  himself,  ex- 
pands it  to  infinity,  and  turns  it  into  a  lonely 
individualist  Deity.  But  when  a  man  takes 
himself  as  type  in  his  quest  for  God,  it  is  of  the 
utmost  importance  that  he  shall  understand 
himself. 

Mistaken  anthropology  is  the  root  of  impossi- 
ble theology.  The  person  who  thinks  of  himself 
as  a  sort  of  Melchizedek,  without  father,  without 
mother,  without  genealogy,  as  standing  outside 
the  circle  of  human  relations  in  a  false  self-suffi- 
ciency, naturally  thinks  of  God  under  the  same 
conception.  But  if  the  maxim  is  true  that  one 
man  is  no  man,  it  is  no  less  true  that  a  bare  uni- 
tary God  is  no  God.  Man  is  a  person  in  rela- 
tion to  other  persons ;  only  thus  are  knowledge 
and  love  real.  And  if  knowledge  and  love  are 
real  in  God  his  nature  must  be  essentially  social. 


368  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

If  then  knowledge  is  real  in  God,  he  must 
have  an  eternal  object  of  thought.  Man  cannot 
think  without  an  object,  and  again,  be  it  remem- 
bered, man  is  our  guide.  The  first  object  of 
thought  for  man  is  some  aspect  of  the  universe ; 
and  it  may  be  said  that  God  is  a  bare  unitary 
intelligence  with  an  eternal  universe  for  his  ob- 
ject. But  to  assert  the  eternity  of  the  material 
universe  in  the  ordinary  conception  of  it  is  sheer 
nonsense.  For  the  material  universe,  as  man 
knows  it,  takes  its  specific  character  from  human 
receptivity.  That  color  is  not  in  things  is  the 
first  commonplace  of  philosophy.  That  hard- 
ness and  softness  and  all  the  other  qualities  of 
bodies  that  imply  relation  between  object  and 
subject  are  not  in  things  is  another  common- 
place of  serious  reflection.  Space  as  the  form 
for  experience  whose  origin  is  exterior,  and  time 
as  the  form  for  all  things  and  ideas  in  succes- 
sion, are  part  of  the  constitution  of  the  human 
mind.  Force,  the  ultimate  quality  to  which  the 
material  universe  is  reduced,  is  indeed  immut- 
able. But  force  is  not  man's  concrete  universe ; 
it  is  the  inferential  and  philosophized  ground  of 
it.  Man's  universe  is  force  in  color,  in  sound, 
in  resistance,  in  human  sensibility  generally ; 
and  the  peculiar  manifestation  of  force  which 
constitutes  our  human  universe  began  when  man 
began.  The  idea  of  an  eternal  universe  is  eter- 


GOD  369 

nal  nonsense.  The  universe  as  it  is  for  man 
began  to  be  with  man;  and  like  Samson  and 
the  Philistines,  when  man  dies  his  universe  dies 
with  him.  As  colored,  resounding,  tangible, 
sensuous,  as  ordered  in  space  and  in  time,  it  has 
its  birth  and  death  with  mankind. 

But  force  remains.  What  then  is  force  ?  The 
best  answer  would  seem  to  be  that  it  is  will  ab- 
stracted from  the  intelligence  with  which  it  is 
always  in  association  as  known.  Will  thus  ab- 
stracted, made  unconscious  and  blind,  and  put 
behind  the  attack  which  the  universe  makes 
upon  human  sensibility,  would  seem  to  be  force. 
If  then  the  universe  is  ultimately  force,  it  is 
ultimately  will ;  if  it  is  ultimately  will,  it  is  ulti- 
mately intelligent  will ;  if  it  is  ultimately  intel- 
ligent will,  it  is  ultimately  God  himself.  And 
the  unitary  God  in  his  prehuman  isolation  is 
thus  left  without  a  universe,  without  an  object, 
without  reason  for  being. 

Following  the  analogy  of  man,  God  may  be 
an  object  to  himself,  and  in  this  way  the  Divine 
knowledge  remain  real.  But  if  this  analogy  is 
to  be  used,  it  would  seem  that  it  should  be  con- 
sistently used.  No  man  is  an  object  to  himself 
in  isolation  from  society.  Man  is  an  object  to 
himself  in  a  hundred  ways  as  a  physical  organi- 
zation, a  mental  power,  and  an  ethical  charac- 
ter, but  always  with  reference  to  other  persons. 


370  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

Comparison,  contrast,  obligation,  privilege,  and 
fellowship  forever  enter  into  all  man's  thoughts 
of  himself.  If  a  man  should  succeed  in  thinking 
only  of  himself  he  would  absolutely  contradict 
his  nature;  for  the  individualist  in  thought  is 
the  contradiction  of  the  socialist  in  being ;  and 
the  socialist  in  being  is  man.  When,  therefore, 
following  the  human  analogy,  God  is  made  an 
eternal  object  to  himself,  he  is  thereby  conceived 
as  an  essentially  social  being.  He  is  not  an 
eternal  egoist  in  eternal  isolation.  For  nothing 
could  ever  come  of  such  a  God,  and  such  a  God 
man  does  not  arrive  at  when  he  takes  his  own 
nature  as  type.  God  is  a  real  thinker,  upon  a 
real  object,  in  a  real  way.  His  thought  must 
be  the  type  of  all  true  thought,  his  object  the 
standard  of  every  permanent  object,  his  way  the 
pattern  for  all  real  relation  between  subject  and 
object.  He  must  be  the  personal  thinker,  the 
personal  object,  the  personal  truth  between  these 
two ;  he  must  be  infinite  reality  covered  by  the 
most  sacred  of  all  symbols,  the  Father  and  the 
Son  and  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Granting,  however,  that  a  unitary  God  who 
knows  is  conceivable,  he  is  conceivable  only  as 
a  self-sufficient  eternal  egoist ;  and  as  such  he 
must  be  without  love.  An  eternal  altruistic 
God  to  whom  from  all  eternity  there  is  no 
other,  in  whom  there  is  no  other,  is  about  as 


GOD  371 

palpable  an  absurdity  as  can  be  put  into  words. 
Love  in  man  is  the  passion  for  another ;  its  ex- 
istence depends  upon  the  society  in  which  man 
is  placed.  Love  in  God  must  mean  the  pas- 
sion for  another ;  its  reality  depends  upon  the 
society  in  the  Godhead.  God's  love  for  him- 
self can  be  called  love  only  on  the  ground  that 
in  himself  he  represents  society,  and  if  he  re- 
presents in  himself  society,  say  human  society 
possible  or  actual,  his  own  Godhead  is  essentially 
and  eternally  social.  From  man's  point  of  view 
—  and  confessedly  this  is  the  only  point  of  view, 
unless  there  is  society,  of  an  ineffable  kind  in- 
deed, in  the  Godhead  —  eternal  existence  would 
be  eternal  misery.  God  is  sincerely  to  be  pitied 
if  he  is  a  bare  unit,  existing  alone  from  eternity. 
His  being  is  the  image  of  calamity,  and  life  such 
as  his  is  cannot  appear  to  social  man  as  other 
than  the  superlative  horror.  Greek  mythology 
with  all  its  crude  anthropomorphism  is  much 
nearer  the  truth  than  the  ghastly  deity  obtained 
by  means  of  the  elimination  of  the  social  ele- 
ment in  man.  These  primitive  Greeks  took 
their  entire  humanity  with  them  in  their  search 
for  God ;  and  their  gods  were  at  least  real,  social, 
and  happy.  Their  existence  was  the  object  of 
man's  admiration  and  aspiration.  The  Christian 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  the  full  statement  of 
the  truth  at  which  Greek  mythology  aimed ;  the 


372  THE  ABSOLUTE   ULTIMATE 

discovery  of  the  social  nature  of  God  through 
the  social  nature  of  man  at  his  highest.  Put 
into  the  Godhead  some  reality  answering  to  the 
words  the  Father,  and  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  one  is  able  to  think  of  the  divine 
knowledge  and  love  as  real,  one  is  able  to  con- 
ceive of  God's  existence  as  ineffably  blessed, 
and  as  containing  in  itself  the  ground  of  human 
society. 

For  the  problem  presented  by  a  unitary  Deity 
becomes  still  more  pressing  when  one  looks  for 
the  eternal  basis  of  humanity.  How  can  a  social 
humanity  come  out  of  an  unsocial  deity?  Under 
whatever  name,  all  fullness  must  be  conceived  to 
dwell  in  him.  An  archetypal  humanity  must  be 
in  God  as  the  eternal  precedent  of  our  human- 
ity. What  can  an  eternal  egoist  know  of  altru- 
ism ?  How  can  God  reconstitute  his  being  with 
the  advent  of  man  ?  How  can  an  unsocial  God 
know  parenthood  ?  He  is  not  a  father,  he  has 
no  eternal  son  ;  are  not  a  father's  passion  and  a 
mother's  love  incomprehensible  to  him  ?  He  is 
not  a  son  ;  how  then  can  he  understand  the  filial 
soul  ?  He  is  not  eternally  joined  in  himself  in 
the  substantial  power  of  love;  how  should  he 
be  able  to  enter  into  the  communion  in  which 
humanity  stands,  in  which  it  comes  to  ever  sub- 
limer  consciousness  of  itself?  A  God  who  is  a 
father  and  a  son,  and  a  holy  spirit,  by  courtesy 


GOD  373 

only,  is  absolutely  out  of  all  relation  to  human 
life.  Such  a  deity  may  have  an  ornamental  use, 
but  he  can  be  in  no  way  essential  to  man  as 
man. 

This  is  so  inevitably  true  that  the  social  or 
Trinitarian  conception  of  God  has  passed  over 
into  the  Unitarian.  Dr.  Martineau  thinks  that 
the  Eternal  Son  of  Trinitarian  faith  has  become 
the  Unitarian  object  of  worship.1  The  truth  is 
we  have  stolen  the  anthropology  of  the  Unitari- 
ans, and  they  have  stolen  the  essential  theology 
of  the  Trinitarians,  and  thus  far  neither  we  nor 
they  have  had  the  courage  to  acknowledge  the 
theft.  The  prayers  of  Theodore  Parker  reveal 
this  appropriation  of  essential  truth.  God  is 
the  Parent  of  man,  the  Father  and  the  Mother 
of  mankind.  And  if  these  expressions  are  words 
flung  out  at  an  ineffable  meaning,  that  ineffable 
meaning  must  be  the  archetypal  humanity  in 
God,  and  an  archetypal  humanity  must  be  a  so- 
cial humanity.  The  great  wild  soul  of  Parker 
is  representative  of  the  heart  of  even  the  sober- 
est Unitarianism.  Unitarians  assume  that  par- 
enthood and  sonhood  completed  in  love  or  com- 
munion are  eternally  in  the  Godhead.  They 
go  on  using  this  great  assumption  without  al- 
ways seeing  where  they  found  it,  without  paus- 
ing to  think  out  consistently  its  meaning.  There 
1  Essays,  vol.  ii.  p.  535. 


374  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

are  devout  and  brave  men  among  them  who  say 
frankly  that  they  employ  family  terms  as  the 
highest  symbol  for  the  Ineffable.  Even  this  I 
understand  to  be  essentially  Trinitarian  ground. 
The  contest  is  not  between  any  given  articula- 
tion of  Trinitarian  doctrine  and  any  given  expres- 
sion of  Unitarian  teaching.  It  is  profounder 
than  that.  Compared  with  the  essential,  funda- 
mental issue,  the  formal  dispute  is  a  dispute  on 
the  surface.  It  should  not  long  delay  the  seri- 
ous and  progressive  thinker  of  to-day.  To  re- 
hearse an  old  battle  is  an  easy  task ;  to  fight  the 
real  battle  of  the  hour  is  something  harder  and 
worthier.  The  contest  to-day  is  between  God 
as  an  eternal  egoist  and  God  as  an  eternal  so- 
cialist. If  God  is  an  eternal  egoist  he  is  the 
contradiction  of  humanity ;  and  as  history  shows, 
the  distance  from  deism  to  atheism,  from  an  un- 
meaning God  to  no  God  at  all,  is  short.  If  God 
is  an  eternal  socialist,  he  is  in  himself  the  ground 
and  hope  of  mankind.  The  race  came  out  of 
his  being ;  men  are  his  offspring ;  and  back  of 
the  human  family  is  the  Eternal  family.  The 
Trinity  is  indeed  a  mystery,  but  it  seems  to  me  a 
mystery  that  saves  the  reality  of  God  to  the 
world.  When  one  seeks  the  truth  underneath 
the  symbol,  and  does  not  put  too  much  stress 
upon  the  arithmetical  paradox,  the  Trinity  stands 
for  a  social  God,  the  only  God  who  can  mean 
anything  great  to  man. 


GOD  375 

Having  considered  the  unitary  conception  of 
the  Deity,  and  the  objections  to  it  from  the  real- 
ity of  knowledge  and  love  in  God,  and  from  his 
relation  to  our  social  human  life  as  ground  and 
hope,  it  is  important  at  this  point  that  the  phi- 
losophical path  to  theistic  belief  should  be  clearly 
seen.  Atheism,  Deism,  and  Christian  Theism 
are  the  positive  thoughts  about  the  universe 
that  concern  us  here.  It  will  be  found  that 
they  result  from  the  different  measures  of  con- 
sistency with  which  man  employs  man  as  the 
key  to  the  final  meaning  of  the  universe.  Ag- 
nosticism must  here  be  counted  out.  When 
genuine  it  is  a  logical  position.  It  refuses  to 
apply  the  human  personality  as  the  guide  to  the 
nature  of  the  Infinite.  When  the  refusal  is 
genuine,  and  not  a  mere  trick  in  the  dialectical 
game,  the  ground  taken  is  defensible.  Any  one 
has  a  right  to  be  dumb  upon  the  ultimate  mean- 
ing of  life  and  the  universe,  on  condition  that 
he  shall  remain  dumb.  In  taking  this  position 
one  asks  simply  to  be  counted  out  of  the  discus- 
sion ;  he  begs,  like  the  unprepared  student  in 
the  class-room,  to  be  excused.  But  in  refusing 
to  speak  he  thereby  pledges  himself  to  silence. 
And  the  difficulty  with  the  average  nineteenth 
century  agnostic  is  that  he  does  not  keep  the 
pledge.  He  is  the  preacher  of  a  theory  of  the 
universe  usually  of  the  materialistic  type,  and 


376  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

his  agnosticism  is  but  a  shield  held  up  in  the  day 
of  battle  against  a  spiritualistic  theory.  Athe- 
ism thus  uniformed  and  armed  is  none  the  less 
atheism.  Agnosticism  as  the  logical  device  and 
strategy  of  a  positive  belief  about  the  universe 
is  agnosticism  only  in  name.  It  is  the  belief 
that  is  the  real  antagonist,  and  not  its  agnostic 
mask.  Still  it  is  to  be  allowed  that  pure,  self- 
consistent  agnosticism  in  the  presence  of  the 
universe  is  a  defensible  attitude.  When  it  can 
say  of  itself  with  truth  "  I  was  dumb,  I  opened 
not  my  mouth,"  it  must  be  admitted  that  in  its 
absolute  silence  it  is  impregnable.  It  is  one 
way  of  behaving  toward  the  Infinite  ;  it  is  a  way 
whose  principle  is  human  ignorance  and  incapa- 
city. It  may  have  a  silent  piety  of  its  own,  and 
a  spirit  of  truth  and  love  in  the  heart  of  the 
humanities.  It  is  no  concern  of  this  discussion  ; 
therefore  peace  be  to  its  dumb  and  sorrowful 
soul. 

Every  creature  that  thinks  must  think  of  the 
Infinite  according  to  its  own  nature.  "  The  lions 
if  they  could  have  pictured  a  god  would  have  pic- 
tured him  in  fashion  like  a  lion  ;  the  horses  like 
a  horse ;  the  oxen  like  an  ox."  So  far  old  Xeno- 
phanes  is  right.  The  difficulty  with  his  exam- 
ples lies  in  the  assumption,  "  if  they  could  have 
pictured  a  god."  They  do  not  think  about  the 
universe,  and  therefore  they  are  freed  from  the 


GOD  377 

necessity  of  distorting  the  Infinite.  But  man 
thinks  about  the  universe,  and  he  can  think 
about  it  only  in  the  terms  of  his  own  nature. 
He  may  plead  that  thought  in  man  implies 
thought  in  the  Maker  of  man,  and  therefore  that 
mind  in  the  creature  is  the  highest  path  to  the 
mind  of  the  Creator.  He  may  claim  that  hu- 
man personality  is  the  supreme  fact  in  the  finite 
world,  and  therefore  is  the  best  witness  for  the 
meaning  of  the  infinite  world.  But  whether  with 
justification  or  without  it,  it  is  self-evident  that 
man  can  interpret  the  universe  only  by  the  use 
of  himself  as  interpreter.  The  fundamental 
position  is  here  repeated  that  every  being  that 
thinks  about  the  universe  must  think  in  the  form 
of  its  own  nature. 

Atheism  is  negative  only  in  form.  It  denies 
that  intelligence  is  the  source  of  life,  and  in 
this  denial  it  affirms  the  opposite  view.  It 
elaborates  this  antitheistic  view.  It  develops 
the  cosmos  from  matter,  motion,  energy,  force. 
Upon  this  force,  blind,  heartless,  irresponsible, 
it  builds  the  universe.  And  the  criticism  to  be 
made  upon  this  procedure  is  that  it  is  a  distorted 
procedure.  It  uses  man  in  a  distorted  form  as 
the  guide  to  its  conclusion  ;  and  the  remark  must 
be  made  that  only  one  of  two  courses  is  possible. 
Either  discredit  man  as  the  measure  of  all  things, 
and  fall  back  into  agnosticism,  or  cease  distort- 


378  THE  ABSOLUTE   ULTIMATE 

ing  the  human  measure  and  go  on  to  Christian 
theism.  Force  is  found  only  in  will;  what  is 
called  force  in  nature  is  but  an  interpretation  of 
an  alien  through  the  conscious  human  will.  If 
then  the  world  beyond  man  is  to  be  labeled 
with  a  human  name,  why  should  it  receive  one 
so  ghostly  ?  Why  should  force  which  is  known 
only  as  a  form  of  mental  life  be  divorced  from 
it,  emptied  of  its  real  content,  and  in  the  guise 
of  the  palest  abstraction  pasted  upon  the  uni- 
verse ?  Materialism,  the  popular  form  of  athe- 
ism, is  simply  the  interpretation  of  the  uni- 
verse through  will  minus  intelligence.  It  is  the 
abstraction  of  force  from  all  connection  with 
consciousness,  and  the  assumption  that  this  is 
the  final  reality. 

It  should  be  clearly  noted  that  this  material- 
istic or  atheistic  procedure  is  both  unscientific 
and  unphilosophic.  It  is  a  mutilation  of  fact ; 
power  is  known  nowhere  apart  from  mind ;  there- 
fore it  is  unscientific.  It  is  unphilosophic;  it 
takes  man  as  guide  to  the  meaning  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  it  refuses  to  follow  where  the  guide 
leads.  It  distorts  man,  reduces  him  to  an  un- 
conscious blind  will,  and  through  this  dissected 
man,  using  the  member  with  which  it  is  pleased 
to  fall  in  love,  it  judges  the  nature  of  being. 
Atheism  is  the  result  of  the  worst  kind  of  an- 
thropomorphism. It  robs  man  of  his  distinctive 


GOD  379 

attributes,  takes  away  his  mind,  reduces  him  to 
blindness  and  then  employs  him  as  guide  to  the 
ultimate  truth.  It  is  strange  that  men  do  not 
see  that  a  non-human  view  of  the  universe  is 
an  absolute  impossibility.  Even  nihilism  is  pre- 
ceded by  the  effacement  of  the  human  person- 
ality. The  vanishing  ego  utters  the  incantation 
under  which  the  worlds  melt  into  thin  air.  It 
is  equally  strange  that  thinkers  who  admit  that 
they  are  compelled  to  use  man  as  the  measure  of 
all  things  should  starve  their  man  into  a  blood- 
less and  mindless  abstraction.  The  fool  hath 
said  in  his  heart,  There  is  no  God ;  and  the  phi- 
losopher who  employs  the  fool  as  his  typical  man 
can  come  to  no  other  conclusion. 

Deism  interprets  the  universe  according  to  the 
same  human  standard  ;  but  the  man  of  deism  is 
more  of  a  man  than  the  pale  abstraction  of  athe- 
ism. The  deistic  man  is  an  individual  being 
with  intelligence,  moral  feeling,  and  will ;  and 
therefore  the  God  of  deism  is  a  thinker,  some- 
what of  a  lover,  and  an  eternal  doer.  He  is  the 
individual  human  being  plus  infinity.  He  is  not 
the  mere  shadow  of  reality,  a  will  emptied  of  all 
purpose,  divorced  from  all  intelligence,  and  re- 
duced to  blind  power.  He  is  living  and  real. 
Both  from  the  scientific  and  philosophic  points 
of  view  deism  is  a  vast  improvement  upon  ma- 
terialism or  atheism.  The  human  standard,  the 


380  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

deistic  man,  is  real  and  so  far  undistorted ;  and 
to  a  given  limit  deism  is  true  to  its  own  prin- 
ciple of  procedure.  Man  is  the  guide  to  God  ; 
and  man  is  an  individual  being. 

Still  deism  is  an  inconsistent  position.  It  is 
a  half-way  house  between  atheism  and  Chris- 
tian theism.  Like  atheism,  deism  employs  only 
an  emaciated  man.  The  deistic  man  is  a  Mel- 
chizedek.  He  has  no  ancestry  and  no  posterity. 
He  is  an  individual  thread  taken  out  of  the 
social  fabric  in  which  he  is  found,  and  in  which 
his  life  has  its  meaning.  Eliminate  from  man 
his  social  nature,  and  the  result  is  a  part  and 
not  the  whole,  a  residuum  that  is  not  man.  And 
the  God  of  deism  is  conceived  in  accordance 
with  this  human  Melchizedek.  He  is  an  infi- 
nite Melchizedek.  He  is  not  a  father,  he  is  not 
a  son,  he  is  not  a  holy  community  in  himself. 
Such  a  God  is  unintelligible  save  through  his 
human  type.  Deism  is  constructed  upon  a  mon- 
strous man,  and  Unitarianism  when  taken  at  its 
word  is  built  upon  the  same  foundation.  If 
God  is  necessarily  the  image  of  man  plus  in- 
finity, why  should  he  not  be  the  reflex  of  the 
full  man  ?  The  individual  man  is  no  man  ;  and 
the  God  to  whom  the  individual  man  leads  is 
an  abstraction  that  can  be  of  no  service  to  the 
universe.  Thus  it  is  that  deism  cannot  survive. 
Atheism  makes  merry  over  its  lonely  individual- 


GOD  381 

istic  God  who  is  in  no  vital  relation  to  the  uni- 
verse ;  and  Christian  theism  exposes  its  suicidal 
inconsistency.  The  deistic  God  can  be  of  no 
posssible  use  to  our  human  world;  an  egoistic 
God  and  an  altruistic  humanity  are  in  hopeless 
contradiction  to  each  other.  An  altruistic  God 
may  convert  an  egoistic  man  on  the  ground  of 
the  latent  social  nature  in  the  egoist ;  but  an 
altruistic  humanity  can  do  nothing  with  an  ego- 
istic Deity.  According  to  the  terms  in  which  it 
is  conceived,  his  nature  is  eternally  unitary  and 
unsocial.  The  fact  is  that  the  deistic  God  is 
the  reflex  of  men  who  have  forgotten  the  truth 
of  their  own  humanity.  Again  bad  anthropo- 
logy leads  to  bad  theology.  The  selfish  man 
gives  rise  to  the  selfish  God ;  the  man  who  has 
not  yet  come  to  the  sense  of  the  society  in  which 
alone  he  is  real,  conceives  of  God  as  like  himself 
a  pure  individualist.  For  the  person  to  whom 
love  is  the  final  reality  in  human  life,  and  for 
whom  the  society  in  which  love  exerts  its  power 
is  essential,  the  deistic  God  is  morally  incon- 
ceivable. For  social  and  loving  man  a  unitary 
Supreme  Being  has  no  interest. 

Christian  theism  tries  to  be  faithful  to  the 
whole  man  in  its  endeavor  through  man  to  find 
God.  With  atheism  and  deism  it  is  eager  to 
pass  over  the  incidental  and  to  fix  attention 
only  upon  the  essential  in  man.  But  against 


382  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

atheism  it  keeps  together  will  and  intelligence 
and  real  being ;  against  deism  it  refuses  to 
separate  the  individual  man  and  the  social  man. 
Man  is  man  only  in  society.  Parenthood,  son- 
hood,  and  the  essential  social  relations  are  part 
of  man's  being.  Without  them  he  could  not 
be ;  in  them  he  is  what  he  is.  And  it  is  pre- 
cisely this  social  man  who  needs  God,  for  whom 
God  has  moral  meaning.  This  man  with  an- 
cestry, with  posterity,  with  a  life  that  is  a  life 
in  humanity,  seeks  for  an  adequate  fountain  of 
moral  life,  and  for  the  eternal  ground  of  it.  If 
God  is  man  plus  infinity  it  must  be  the  social 
man  carried  to  his  highest.  Eternal  fatherhood, 
eternal  sonhood,  eternal  love  must  be  the  truth 
of  the  Godhead ;  there  must  be  in  God  the  arche- 
type of  humanity.  The  whole  man  is  man  in 
society,  and  if  the  human  principle  is  faithfully 
used,  the  whole  God  must  be  a  God  with  an 
ineffable  society  in  himself. 

The  line  of  argument  here  used  may  be  sum- 
marized as  follows.  The  consistent  use  of  man 
as  the  guide  to  God  necessitates  a  God  with 
society  in  himself.  Any  other  kind  of  God  is 
the  result  of  a  meagre,  emaciated,  and  unreal 
man.  Further,  no  other  God  is  worth  anything 
as  cause  and  fountain  of  mankind.  An  indi- 
vidualistic Deity  can  yield  only  an  individual- 
istic universe ;  a  society  in  the  glory  of  love  is 


GOD  383 

an  absolute  contradiction  to  such  a  supreme 
egoist.  If,  therefore,  the  cause  must  equal  the 
effect,  the  social  man  can  be  accounted  for  only 
by  the  social  God.  "  And  God  said,  Let  us 
make  man  in  our  image,  after  our  likeness."  l 
The  working  of  our  principle  is  obvious  in  the 
grand  old  words.  The  social  man  is  the  reflex 
of  the  social  God  ;  the  social  God  is  the  reflex 
of  the  social  man ;  thus  the  earliest  faith  and 
the  latest  meet  in  the  same  great  conclusion. 
Finally,  any  other  kind  of  God  is  an  enigma, 
and  the  symbol  of  eternal  misery.  He  is  an 
enigma  because  an  individualist  God  as  the  au- 
thor of  a  social  universe  is  an  impenetrable  mys- 
tery. The  eternal  life  of  such  a  Deity  cannot 
be  the  archetype  of  the  universe  in  time ;  his 
pretemporal  being  is  without  any  conceivable 
relation  to  temporal  being ;  he  and  our  human 
universe  fall  apart,  and  between  them  there  is 
a  great  gulf  fixed.  The  unitary  conception  of 
God  is  the  symbol  of  misery.  The  pretemporal 
Deity  in  utter  loneliness,  inhabiting  by  himself 
his  own  eternity,  is  a  picture  of  unhappiness 
wrought  up,  by  supreme  art,  to  the  highest  and 
most  exquisite  torture.  Solitary  confinement  for 
an  eternity  is  appalling  even  for  the  Eternal. 
In  contrast  to  this  the  full  man  finds  the  living 
God.  He  is  a  God  out  of  whose  nature  human 

1  Genesis  i.  26. 


384  THE  ABSOLUTE   ULTIMATE 

society  has  come  ;  his  pretemporal  life  is  a  type 
of  the  human  world  in  time.  God  is  thus  in 
himself  ideal  society,  ideal  humanity ;  and  the 
name  for  this  living  God,  the  vision  of  whom  is 
man's  highest  joy,  is  the  Father,  and  the  Son, 
and  the  Holy  Spirit.  Thus  the  conception  that 
seems  self-contradictory  turns  out  to  be  the  only 
consistent  and  enduring  idea  of  God.  It  is 
properly  claimed  that  the  problem  of  the  person 
of  Christ  led  the  church  into  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity.  Jesus  Christ,  the  Divine  man,  as  the 
guide  to  God,  could  lead  only  to  the  God  who  is 
in  himself  an  eternal  archetypal  society.  The 
uniqueness  of  Jesus  Christ  here,  as  elsewhere,  is 
that  he  is  the  light  of  the  world.  His  perfec- 
tion forced  the  issue  between  the  social  and  the 
unsocial  Deity.  He  did  it  for  himself,  and  for 
his  brethren ;  and  what  he  did  is  the  sign  of 
what  he  was.  Man  must  rise  to  Christ  before 
he  can  see  the  true  God.  Anthropology  must 
first  rise  to  Christology ;  then  it  may  rise  to 
true  theology. 

In  dealing  with  the  nature  of  God,  we  are 
dealing  with  the  nature  of  man  set  free  from  all 
limitation.  It  is  true  that  modesty  and  tenta- 
tiveness  should  lie  in  the  spirit  of  our  reasonings 
upon  this  ineffable  theme.  To  certain  minds, 
hints,  suggestions,  intimations  of  possible  truth, 
are  more  acceptable  in  this  region  than  definite 


GOD  S85 

conclusions.  Other  minds  finding  a  sure  princi- 
ple of  interpretation  hold  to  it  honestly  and 
courageously.  They  do  this  without  in  the  least 
forgetting  either  the  uncertainty  that  forever 
shadows  human  speculation  or  the  unexplorable 
mystery  of  God's  being.  To  this  class  the  writer 
belongs.  He  knows  what  doubt  is ;  it  is  indeed 
part  of  his  existence.  He  believes,  however, 
that  the  true  path  to  God  is  along  the  line  of 
human  personality.  And  thus  believing,  he  sees 
no  reason  to  waver  or  hesitate  in  the  full  logical 
expression  of  his  fundamental  assumption ;  or  to 
apologize  for  his  confidence  in  the  resulting  con- 
clusions. 

All  the  more  is  the  writer  inclined  to  this 
confidence  since  the  principle  is  one  which  every 
man  can  test  for  himself.  We  go  to  God  on 
account  of  our  human  life  ;  and  we  seek  a  God 
answering  to  the  nature  and  vocation  of  human- 
ity. Can  a  unitary  Deity  suit  the  need  ?  Can 
an  individualist  God  match  our  nature  and  op- 
portunity ?  Can  an  infinite  Melchizedek  be  the 
ground  of  human  society?  Ask  thought,  and  go 
deeper ;  ask  life  to  say  what  its  nature  is  and 
what  its  needs  are ;  then  reason  from  the  social 
creation  to  the  social  maker.  And  if  this  seems 
like  reaching  the  Trinity  on  the  strength  of  our 
humanity,  and  apart  from  the  revelation  in 
Jesus  Christ,  let  us  resist  this  antithesis  as  un- 


386  THE  ABSOLUTE  ULTIMATE 

real.  Humanity  is  here,  and  God  is  here,  and 
the  glory  of  Jesus  Christ  lies  in  the  light  that 
he  has  poured  upon  both.  He  has  taught  us 
that  the  final  truth  about  man  is  life  in  the 
fellowship  of  love  ;  he  has  taught  us  that  this 
fellowship  on  earth  is  possible  because  of  the 
ineffable  fellowship  of  love  in  God. 

Once  more  it  must  be  said  that  the  way  to 
God  is  not  so  much  through  the  organization  of 
thought  as  through  the  order  and  necessity  of 
life.  The  word  is  nigh  man  ;  it  is  in  his  heart, 
in  the  structure  and  hunger  of  his  being.  Theism 
has  gone  far  away  for  its  ground  when  it  should 
have  remained  at  home.  The  mightiest  witness 
is  there.  The  telescope  is  nothing  to  the  child 
or  the  savage  ;  it  is  little  to  the  ignorant.  These 
persons  may  have  it  near  them  for  years  and  yet 
miss  the  glory  of  the  heavens.  It  is  the  person 
who  studies  it,  who  discovers  its  character,  who 
can  turn  it  to  amazing  uses,  and  by  it  fill  his 
heart  with  the  vision  of  a  universe  of  splendors 
before  unimagined  and  unimaginable.  For  the 
majority  of  even  serious  people  human  life  is 
the  least  understood  of  all  great  things.  It  is 
the  least  respected.  When  will  men  come  to 
know  themselves  ?  When  will  they  uncover  their 
heads  and  unsandal  their  feet  in  the  sacred  pre- 
sence of  life  ?  When  will  they  take  human  life 
with  its  divine  weakness,  its  immortal  hunger, 


GOD  387 

its  ranges  of  regret  and  grief ,  its  whole  uplift  of 
toil,  suffering,  and  aspiration,  and  turn  it  full 
upon  the  being  of  God?  Then  indeed  God 
shall  be  brought  near  to  man ;  and  he  who  is 
over  all  in  his  Fatherhood,  and  through  all  in 
his  Sonhood,  shall  be  in  all  as  the  might  of  the 
Holy  Spirit. 


INDEX 


ACTS  OF  TOT  APOSTLES,  161. 

Adam,  the  modified,  161. 

Agnostic,  the,  cannot  predict  Issue 
of  man's  career,  216. 

Agnosticism,  375 ;  not  fundamental, 
135. 

Allen,  Prof.  A.  V.  G.,  on  Edwards's 
teaching,  300. 

Altruism,  the  rudimentary,  of  the 
wild  beast,  313. 

America,  a  new,  242. 

Analogy,  argument  for  the  moral 
universe  from,  320-322. 

Anaxagoras,  112. 

Anaximander,  111. 

Anaximenes,  111. 

Anglo-American  peoples,  sense  of 
personality  strong  in,  173. 

Animal  life  in  its  relation  to  the 
whole,  164, 165. 

Annihilation,  poor  refuge  from  an 
eternal  hell,  44. 

Anselmic  conception  of  sin,  42. 

Antigone  of  Sophocles,  a  glorious 
creature,  37. 

Apologists,  the,  men  who  made  a 
beginning  in  theology,  62,  63. 

Apostles,  providentially  silent,  23  ; 
their  manner  of  viewing  Christ, 
41;  find  their  message  through 
conscience,  224. 

Apostolic  ship,  the,  unnecessary  loss 
of  cargo,  88. 

Arabian  Nights  of  psychology,  146. 

Argument,  versus  intellectual 
power,  137. 

Aristides,  the  apologist,  63. 

Aristotle,  262;  the  generative  na- 
ture of  experience  one  of  his  great 
insights,  13;  and  Hegel,  19;  influ- 
ence on  all  educated  men,  60; 
thought  young  men  poor  students 
of  ethics,  60;  is  yet  master  in 
many  points,  66 ;  his  categories, 
116  ;  criticism  of,  117  ;  his  natural 
science  wild,  his  ethical  immortal, 
167;  cannot  bequeath  hia  intel- 
lect, 228. 


Arminius,  competitor  with  Calvin, 
61. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  application  of 
noble  ideas  to  life,  47;  on  the 
Trinity,  359. 

Art,  a  witness  to  the  personal  spirit 
of  man,  159. 

Athanasius,  132,  363;  thinker  and 
administrator,  64. 

Atheism,  final  duel  between  theism 
and,  135 ;  and  a  full  humanity 
mutually  destructive,  197 ;  versus 
superstition,  336;  means  selfish- 
ness, 348;  distance  from  deism  to, 
short,  374;  discussed,  377-379. 

Athenagoras,  63. 

Atlas,  the  true,  243. 

Atomism  of  British  thought,  102. 

Atonement,  doctrine  of,  trans- 
formed by  preachers,  40;  the  ut- 
terance of  the  Infinite  will  as 
ground  of  reconciliation,  125,  127. 

Augustine,  172,  265,  284;  both  theo- 
logian and  preacher,  31 ;  necessity 
for  theology  works  in  him,  64;  on 
the  relation  of  faith  to  know- 
ledge, 66,  85,  99;  supplied  cate- 
gories to  Christian  intellect  for 
fifteen  hundred  years,  123,  124; 
"  Confessions  of,"  282. 

Automatic  view  of  the  mind,  146. 

Axioms,  bound  to  multiply,  13. 

BABEL,  the  eschatological,  301. 

Bacon,  Francis,  on  opinions  about 
God,  336 ;  deprecated  final  causes 
in  science,  362. 

Barbour,  Professor,  82. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  34,  269. 

Believer,  normal,  finds  God  as  he 
finds  his  mother,  344. 

Bible,  the,  monumental  symbol  of 
spiritual  experience,  1C ;  the 
smaller  Bible  has  given  way  to  the 
greater,  78  ;  emergence  from  its 
fiery  trial,  79 ;  truth  about,  80 ; 
the  supreme  expression  of  su- 
preme spiritual  experience  of 


390 


INDEX 


mankind,  94 ;  historical  and  liter- 
ary questions  about  it,  306* 

Brooks,  Phillips,  177,  265. 

Buddha,  a,  finds  elements  of  being 
lacking  in  an  ego,  140  ;  to  him 
the  highest  hope  of  man  is  the 
hope  of  extinction,  271. 

Buddhism,  one  of  its  three  grand 
characteristics,  139  ;  conundrum 
of,  140;  ludicrous  contradictions 
through  denial  of  the  ego,  141. 

Bunyan,  John,  happy  in  Bedford 
jail,  235. 

Burns,  Robert,  unity  of  his  life,  144 ; 
quotations,  235 ;  facts  of  his  ca- 
reer introduction  to  the  man,  307. 

Bushnell,  Horace,  265  ;  checked  the 
sway  of  the  governmental  view  of 
Christ's  death,  43;  inaugurator 
of  a  movement  greater  than  he 
knew,  67. 

Business,  a  moral  fellowship,  189. 

Butler,  Bishop,  252;  his  method  of 
dealing  with  the  future  life  in  the 
"Analogy,"  10;  his  sermons  the 
best  ethical  work  in  the  English 
language,  91 ;  finds  ego  necessary 
to  character,  143. 

CALVIN,  John,  great  thinker  and 
scholar,  19,  25;  his  "  Institutes," 
32,  37 ;  panoply  of,  61 ;  expositor 
of  Augustinianism,  66. 

Calvinism,  five  points  of,  123 ;  of 
Nature,  192. 

Campbell,  MacLeod,  67. 

Canonization  a  mistake,  53. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  on  Lord  Jeffrey 
and  John  Sterling  in  argument, 
137,  175,  336. 

Categories,  the,  a  shorthand  method 
of  thought,  110  ;  historic  search 
for  them  inevitable,  119  ;  the  five, 
of  Augustine,  124-126 ;  errors  in 
treatment  of  them,  127. 

Chalmers,  Thomas,  preacher,  32; 
quotation  oftenest  on  his  lips,  35. 

Channing,  W.  E.,  265  ;  debt  to,  34. 

Character,  wholly  an  individual 
achievement,  214 ;  in  the  making 
a  constant  crisis,  276. 

Charles  the  Second,  235. 

Christ,  interpretation  of,  in  priestly 
terms,  41 ;  his  death  as  a  debt  paid 
to  Satan,  42;  his  death  as  a  satis- 
faction of  the  moral  law,  43 ; 
school  of,  99,  261  ;  moral  life 
lifted  to  full  magnificence  by,  107 ; 
the  religious  ultimate,  134  ;  his 
highest  virtue  that  he  was  com- 
pletely dutiful,  127,  128;  and 
antichrist  in  conflict,  134,  135; 


the  cross  his  supreme  revelation, 
152 ;  the  force  by  which  the  capa- 
city for  true  selfhood  becomes 
conscious,  171 ;  his  privilege,  202; 
influence  of,  makes  men  cosmopol- 
itan, 206;  contest  with  Belial, 
219 ;  in  history,  220 ;  grief  of,  over 
social  disaster,  221 ;  his  kingdom 
a  society  of  individuals,  222 ;  first 
witness  for,  264 ;  his  power  to  re- 
new the  desire  for  life,  268 ;  many 
approaches  to  the  soul  of,  272  ; 
the  light  of  the  world,  275;  sur- 
passing beauty  of,  278 ;  source  of 
the  world's  grace,  279;  a  greater 
spirit  unthinkable,  280 ;  perfection 
of  his  religious  consciousness,  281 ; 
the  mirror  of  God  and  the  type  of 
the  race,  284;  the  supreme  discov- 
ery, 285  ;  the  person  of,  290 ;  in- 
dispensable to  a  living  church, 
291 ;  is  man  at  his  best,  330;  his 
conception  of  God,  340;  problem 
of  his  person  led  to  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity,  384. 

Christian  discipleship,  261,  276. 

Christian  experience,  the  soul  in,92. 

Christian  intellect,  a  new  world 
thrown  open  to  it,  81 ;  its  refor- 
mation in  knowledge,  132;  its  re- 
organization in  thought,  133. 

Christian  life,  the,  264. 

Christian  reality  and  Christian  in- 
telligence incommensurate,  131. 

Christiana,  truer  to  spiritual  life 
than  Christian,  220. 

Christianity,  apostolic,  represented 
by  Peter,  John,  and  Paul,  23;  its 
comprehension  beyond  theology, 
120;  unique,  172 ;  unconscious, 
179,  275  ;  bound  to  become  the 
religion  of  the  world,  267  ;  a  reli- 
gion for  business,  273 ;  the  divine 
condition  of  moral  industry,  274 ; 
beauty  of,  277  ;  moral  refinement 
of,  compared  with  stoicism,  278  ; 
the  interpretation  of  God  through 
the  perfect  man,  366. 

Christological  tradition,  290,  291. 

Christologies,  manufactured,  203. 

Christology,  a  human  question,  264 ; 
a  meagre,  fatal  to  the  pulpit,  291 ; 
anthropology  must  rise  to,  384. 

Civilization,  fundamental  enemies 
of,  86. 

Classic,  the,  distinguished  by  per- 
manent susceptibility  to  modern 
appreciation,  122. 

Clement,  scholar  and  thinker,  31, 
61;  education  of  mankind,  66, 132. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  his  simile  of  Noah'* 
Ark,  142. 


INDEX 


391 


Comforter,  the,  229. 

Commonwealth,  a  moral,  209. 

Conscience,  its  relation  to  individu- 
ality, 109,  110;  counts  for  more 
and  more,  207  ;  government  origi- 
nates in,  315. 

Consciousness,  of  sin,  165 ;  of  ethical 
Identity  with  Ood,  166  ;  gains  on 
unconsciousness,  276  ;  of  Christ 
and  of  the  Christian,  281 ;  of  Christ 
primary,  282 ;  how  reached,  286. 

Conservatism  of  man,  145. 

Continuity,  an  overworked  truth, 
188. 

Copernicus,  his  method  as  an  as- 
tronomer, 96. 

Cosmos,  the,  318,  319  ;  on  the  side 
of  human  morality,  323,  its  move- 
ment from  mist  to  present  order, 
352. 

Creative  activity  of  the  old  thinkers, 
64,65. 

Creator,  the,  known  by  the  creation, 
154. 

Creeds,  witnesses  to  what  was  vital, 
290. 

Criminal,  the,  may  be  higher  in 
moral  value  than  the  saint,  196. 

Critic,  the,  with  no  faith,  309;  a 
prophet,  310. 

Critical  spirit,  good  only  in  its  fear 
to  believe  a  lie,  259. 

Criticism,  of  love,  the,  260  ;  of  the 
Pharisee,  261;  poor,  when  igno- 
rant or  proceeding  from  a  mean 
spirit,  262 ;  moral,  316,  317. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  226  ;  307. 

DANTB,  262;  unity  of  his  "Divine 
Comedy,"  144  ;  Why  his  "  Infer- 
no" survives.  300. 

Darwin,  involved  in  ultimate  ques- 
tions, 5. 

Davidic  psalms,  161. 

Death,  the  servant  of  life  on  the 
animal  level,  191 ;  and  individu- 
alism in  absolute  enmity,  192 ; 
one  of  the  hardest  facts  with 
which  optimism  has  to  deal,  229 ; 
abolished  by  God's  world-plan, 
250. 

Definition,  exhaustive,  is  impossible, 
141. 

Deism,  discussed,  379-381. 

Deni.-.l  of  Ood,  practical  and  specula- 
tive, 348. 

Depravity,  assertion  of  the  finite 
will  against  the  Infinite  Will,  124, 
125,  127. 

Descartes,  138,  151,  152. 

Determinism,  universal  and  partial, 
24,  25. 


Diogenes,  the  ancient  and  the  mod- 
ern, 174,  200. 

Doctrine,  often  a  sorrowful  memo- 
rial of  life,  96. 

Dog,  anecdote  of,  147. 

Dogma  must  be  dissolved  in  life, 
95. 

Dogmatism,  post-mortem,  300. 

Drummond,  Henry,  anecdote  of,  76  ; 
interpreter  of  evolution,  77;  the 
struggle  for  the  life  of  others,  208. 

Dualism,  the  actual  and  the  ideal 
man,  314  ;  of  the  earth  extended, 
328. 

Duty,  savage  disregard  of,  218. 

ECCLESIASTES,  pessimistic,  233. 

Education,  an  awakener,  108;  of 
man,  God's  world-plan,  243 ; 
happiness  from  God's,  245 ;  nega- 
tive, is  precious,  246  ;  consists  in 
taming  the  wild  egoism  of  hu- 
manity, 358. 

Edwards,  Jonathan, 347;  his  "Reli- 
gious Affections,"  33,  282 ;  "  true 
religion,"  54  ;  his  originality  out- 
side of  his  system,  67;  his  foun- 
dation the  absoluteness  of  God,  73 ; 
discipline  in  truth  and  exhibition 
of  error,  98 ;  grasp  upon  fundamen- 
tal aspects,  132  ;  his  "  Sinners  in 
the  hands  of  an  angry  God,"  300. 

Ego,  Humes'  hunt  for  the,  139 ;  its 
lack  in  Buddhism,  140. 

Egoism,  its  sense  of  horror,  217  ; 
identified  with  will  and  unhappi- 
ness,  232 ;  genuine,  perfected, 
through  genuine  altruism,  357. 

Election,  felt  to  be  an  immoral  doc- 
trine, 38. 

Elijah  and  the  still,  small  voice, 
332,333. 

Emerson,  quotations,  164,  167;  his 
aristocratic  revulsion  from  the 
multitude  resisted,  176,  177. 

Empire,  the  passage  of,  323. 

Endless  task  requires  endless  oppor- 
tunity, 250. 

Environment,  and  organism,  228, 
238,  319 ;  does  not  determine  the 
mood,  233 ;  transformation  of, 
239;  of  Jesus,  307. 

Epictetus,  193. 

Epicureanism,  198. 

Epistemology,  one  guide  to  the 
vision  of  selfhood,  H'J. 

Eschatology,  the  older  books  upon, 
300  ;  dogmatist  in,  301. 

Ethics,  has  risen  out  of  practical  in- 
terests, 55  ;  the  science  of  charac- 
ter, 142. 

Evolution,  a  generation  hence,  12 ; 


392 


INDEX 


has  Riven  rise  to  a  new  natural 
history,  76,  352 ;  record  of  self- 
differentiation  of  man,  204;  of 
Triuitariauism,  363. 

Expansion,  a  true  theory,  202,  203. 

Experience,  spiritual,  world  unat- 
tainable without,  93  ;  necessary  to 
the  theologian,  94 ;  of  every  Chris- 
tian, 289. 

External  world,  its  reality  assumed 
by  the  natural  sciences,  5. 

FABIAN,  63. 

Faith,  and  vision,  47 ;  abides,  89  ; 
precedes  intellect,  93  ;  two  funda- 
mental articles  won,  209 ;  the 
deepest  foundation  of  optimism, 
243;  reasonable,  in  Infinite  Wis- 
dom and  pity,  246;  poetry  of, 
263,  254 ;  failure  in,  of  hero  in 
duty,  275 ;  its  final  question,  336  ; 
earliest  and  latest  meet,  383. 

Fate,  compared  to  a  general,  146  ; 
of  humanity,  importance  of,  302. 

Fichte,  his  development,  152,  153; 
his  idea  of  the  cosmos  and  the 
human  body,  238. 

Fiske,  John,  interpreter  of  Darwin- 
ism, 77  ;  his  "  Everlasting  Reality 
of  Religion,"  321. 

"  Follow  the  Gleam,"  356. 

Force,  as  will  abstracted  from  the 
intelligence,  369  ;  in  nature,  378. 

Freedom,  poor  philosophy  without 
a  world-plan,  195 ;  and  power,  in- 
creased by  numbers  of  the  race, 
205 ;  English,  nobler  since  the 
Protector,  227  ;  an  education  for, 
241. 

Froude,  J.  A.,  his  opinion  of  Mau- 
rice, 69. 

GENEALOGIST,  warm  human  world 
behind  his  blank  names,  49. 

Genesis,  the  legends  of,  161. 

German  idealism,  why  welcomed 
and  why  feared,  80. 

Gnosticism  of  traditional  creed,  128. 

God,  a  primitive  process,  44 ;  the 
Absolute  ultimate,  134,  135,  332- 
387  ;  intentional  universalism  of, 
136 ;  the  absolute  habit  of  love, 
148  ;  swamping  of  man  in,  patho- 
logical, 163  ;  on  the  side  of  every 
soul  he  has  made,  182 ;  the  Calvin- 
istic,  195  ;  attack  upon  the  love  of, 
198 ;  gifts  of,  in  the  moral  world, 
217  ;  world-plan  of,  244  ;  work  of, 
with  the  mass  of  mankind,  247  ; 
his  overwhelming  beauty  in  the 
thought  of  Jesus,  277  ;  the  father 
of  Chriat,  279 ;  nature  of,  291, 


358;  filial,  292;  without  Him,  the 
universe  unintelligible,  334 ;  the 
Person,  whose  life  is  an  infinite 
content  of  meanings,  335 ;  the 
existence  of,  337,  355  ;  appeal  of, 
to  man,  and  man's  answer,  338- 
340 ;  the  idea  of,  341,  345 ;  with- 
out him  humanity  must  break 
down,  342  ;  of  Israel,  343 ;  proof 
of  His  being,  346,  350,  351,  355 ; 
negation  of,  in  the  spirit,  347  ; 
necessity  of  humanity,  356;  love 
of,  357  ;  for  man,  an  Infinite  man, 
365 ;  the  unitary,  367  ;  an  object 
to  himself,  369 ;  not  an  eternal 
egoist,  370 ;  love  in,  371 ;  as  an 
egoist  and  as  a  socialist,  374;  an 
altruistic  God  may  convert  an 
egoistic  man,  381  ;  the  whole, 

382  ;  an  individualist,  an  enigma, 

383  ;  the  mystery  of  His  being, 
385  ;  the  way  to  him  through  life, 
386. 

Goethe,  calls  Christianity,  worship 
of  sorrow,  244. 

Golden  Age,  a  future,  225,  226,  228. 

Gospel,  the,  its  immense  practical- 
ness, 272  ;  the  aesthetic  wonder, 
227  ;  its  finality,  279. 

Grammar  of  sense,  146. 

Grant,  Gen.,  his  optimism  after 
Vicksburg,  215,  309. 

Greek  and  Latin  theologies,  76. 

Greek  anthropomorphism  nearer 
the  truth  than  an  unsocial  God, 
371. 

Greek  grammar,  its  living  reproduc- 
tion in  literature,  106. 

Greek  philosophers :  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle still  classic  in  part,  65,  66. 

Green,  Thomas  Hill,  80, 

Griffin,  Dr.,  quotation  from,  301. 

HANNIBAL,  297. 

Health  of  race  in  excess  of  sickness, 
228. 

Heaven  and  hell,  doubt  whether 
they  were  not  superfluities,  301. 

Hebraism,  its  social  faith,  222. 

Hebrew,  prophets,  224 ;  scriptures, 
the  world  in  which  they  originated 
has  vanished,  121. 

Hebrews,  author  of  the  epistle 
to,  41 ;  shows  that  fruition  was 
for  the  Christian,  not  the  Hebrew, 
227. 

Hegel,  a  scholar  In  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word,  19  ;  his  influence  on 
educated  men,  50  ;  the  last  great 
elaborator  of  the  categories,  118 ; 
the  only  modern  strong  enough  to 
be  ranked  with  Plato  and  Aristotle, 


INDEX 


393 


119 ;  his  comparison  of  philosophy 
to  the  owl  of  Minerva,  350. 

Heracletus,  112. 

Heredity,  a  difficulty  in  the  way  of 
optimism,  228. 

Hermias,  63. 

Higher  criticism,  a  protest  against  a 
literary  lie,  160  ;  believers  do  not 
fear  it,  309. 

Hindu  races,  sense  of  personality 
weak  in,  173. 

History,  kind  through  justice,  245 ; 
human,  significant  only  from  the 
inside,  353. 

Holy  of  Holies,  entered  when  we 
will  the  ideal,  349. 

Home,  the  genuine  human,  1C2 ; 
founded  in  instinct  as  transfigured 
by  moral  reason,  189. 

Homer,  161,  262. 

Human  depravity,  the  doctrine  of, 
unjust  to  life,  39. 

Human  fellowship,  adult  conscious- 
ness of,  108. 

Human  interest,  the  source  of  all 
good  thinking,  49. 

Human  relationship  the  primal 
moral  fact,  311. 

Human  weakness  responsible  for 
Infinite  guilt,  42. 

Humanities,  the,  centre  in  great 
personalities,  160. 

Humanity,  means  several  things, 
180-183 ;  as  shown  in  the  parables, 
185 ;  hopeless  ideal  in  light  of 
survival  of  the  fittest,  193 ;  its  law 
found  only  in  humanity,  194  ;  its 
supreme  guardian,  the  Gospel, 
206;  a  fellowship,  357,  358;  the 
basis  of,  372 ;  reaching  the  Trinity 
on  the  strength  of  our,  385. 

Hume,  David,  a  negative  thinker, 
138,  139 ;  value  of  his  criticism, 
317. 

Huinian  individualism,  80 ;  psychol- 
ogy, 151,  160. 

Huxley,  T.  H.,  his  Romanes  lecture, 
325,  326. 

IDEALISM,  German,  102;  of  Plato, 
114. 

Ignorance,  no  argument,  252 ;  of 
physiologist  versus  knowledge  of 
moralist,  253. 

Immortality,  within  sight,  166 ;  au- 
thenticated by  reciprocity  be- 
tween Ood  and  man,  167  ;  con- 
ditional, 194,  195 ;  the  supreme 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  its  be- 
lief, 1% ;  objections  of  ignorance 
deserve  no  deference,  252 ;  the 
desire  for  it  strongest  in  a  Chris- 


tian community,  270;  suspicion 

of,  301. 
Incarnation,  its  meaning,  182,  292, 

318. 
Indian    civilization,    paralyzed   by 

want  of  social  ideals,  266. 
Individual,  the,  no  moral  world  for, 

till  he  sees  it,  108 ;  one  great  aim 

of  the  preacher,  220;  and  society, 

Individualism,  a  half  truth,  101; 
British,  102;  and  racialism  recon- 
ciled, 176. 

Infant,  the  emergence  of  its  mind 
from  isolation,  103-106. 

Inhumanity,  man's,  medium  of  dan- 
gers, 198. 

Insight,  the  end,  not  the  beginning 
of  righteousness,  350. 

Intellectual  pettiness,  303. 

Isaiah,  222. 

Isaiahs,  two  or  three,  161. 

Israelite,  the  dream  of,  interpreted, 
330. 

JACOB,  and  the  angel,  339,  349. 

James,  Professor,  "Varieties  of  Re- 
ligious Experience,"  46;  "The 
Will  to  Believe,"  213;  reasons 
why  men  do  pray,  345. 

Japanese,  ask  if  heaven  is  open  to 
their  ancestors,  221. 

Jeremiah,  221,  222. 

JESUS  CHBIST,  condensation  of  his 
teaching,  28 ;  the  sacrificial  death 
of,  40 ;  his  the  supreme  religious 
experience,  47 ;  words  of,  87 ;  su- 
preme master  of  himself  and  hence 
of  all  who  aspire  morally,  90 ;  the 
relation  of  his  ideal  ethical  career 
to  the  Absolute  will,  127  ;  religion 
of,  131 ;  Judas  and,  166;  wrought 
sense  of  soul  in  men,  172;  Judg- 
ment Parable  of,  178;  influence  of 
the  moral  personality  of,  205 ; 
divine  straggler  for  the  life  of 
others,  208 ;  different  views  of 
the  birth  of,  216;  most  joyous 
person  known  to  history,  244; 
fitting  attitude  of  mind  in  the 
study  of,  257  ;  the  believer's  study 
of,  the  most  authentic,  260 ;  criti- 
cism of,  261 ;  insensibility  to  his 
majesty,  202  ;  the  significance  of, 
263;  the  world's  incomparable 
spiritual  possession,  265,  2(U> ;  liia 
supremacy  among  religious  teach- 
ers rests  on  the  verdict  of  life, 
267 ;  his  verdict  concerning  him- 
self, 271 ;  as  light,  272-275;  over- 
whelming beauty  of  his  thought 
of  God,  277  ;  an  infinite  surprise 


394 


INDEX 


to  his  people,  280;  the  perfect 
man,  291 ;  preexistence  of,  292 ; 
unique  vocation  of,  294;  the 
world's  sovereign  symbol  for  God, 
295 ;  teaching  of,  the  bread  of  life, 
304  ;  perspective  of,  306 ;  environ- 
ment of,  307;  the  realization  of 
Jacob'*  vision,  322;  his  moral  out- 
fit implies  a  moral  universe,  327, 
328;  the  cause  of,  329,  347;  is 
God  minus  infinity,  366. 

Jewish  temple,  the,  346. 

Job,  his  supreme  expression  of  the 
religious  spirit,  163. 

Jowett,  Benjamin,  on  arguing  of  Mr. 
Ward,  137. 

Justification,  the  Protestant ;  illus- 
trated by  Matthew  Arnold,  360. 

Justin  Martyr,  63,  64. 

KANT,  his  great  question,  10,  11 ; 
his  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason," 
12;  influence,  GO;  Esthetic  and 
Logic,  106;  his  expansion  of  Aris- 
totle's categories,  117,  118;  finds 
the  ego  necessary  to  knowledge, 
143;  Fichte,  his  disciple,  152; 
his  famous  dictum  of  personal- 
ity, 199;  counsels  of  perfection, 
260. 

Kindness,  relentless,  247. 

Kinship  between  God  and  man,  a 
fundamental  of  faith  to-day,  294. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  his  optimism, 
243;  276.  ' 

Knowledge,  nature  of,  102  ;  always 
implies  foreign  stimulus  and  na- 
tive response,  338 ;  chiefly  a  revela- 
tion of  the  Infinite,  341. 

LABOR,  improvement  in  the  condition 
of,  240 ;  the  wof Id-maker,  243. 

Lamb,  Charles,  quotation  about 
Shakespere  and  Christ,  264. 

Law,  the  confession  of  a  social  ideal, 
315. 

Leviticus,  304. 

Life,  the  struggle  for,  207,  208 ;  the 
desire  for,  renewed  by  Christ, 
268. 

Livingstone,  David,  177,  178. 

Logic,  expounded  by  mathematical 
formulae,  4;  whence  its  permanent 
fascination,  111. 

Logos,  the,  293. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  detail  in  "  The 
Village  Blacksmith,"  308. 

Love,  the  failure  in,  man's  supreme 
failure,  190 ;  must  go  mad  or  it 
must  go  to  God,  342 ;  requires 
both  the  individual  and  society, 
358;  and  the  Trinity,  362;  fellow- 


ship of,  Christ's  final  teaching, 
386. 

Lucretius,  compared  with  modern 
materialists,  80 ;  deserves  thanks 
from  us,  317. 

Luther,  Martin,  172,  265,  282,  307, 
316, 347  ;  great  preacher,  32 ;  not 
a  creative  theologian,  66 ;  his 
"Ein  feste  burg,"  87;  his  idea 
of  justification,  95;  at  the  Diet 
of  Worms,  149;  his  achieve- 
ment of  permanent  significance, 
227. 

MAM,  the  master  of  his  soul,  89; 
knows  his  relations,  164 ;  his  nor- 
mal being  in  love,  189;  condition 
of  his  deliverance,  217;  reality  of, 
prior  question  to  discussion  of  hu- 
man life,  299 ;  the  ideal  and  the 
actual,  314 ;  his  moral  outfit  a 
superhuman  bequest,  326 ;  must 
find  God  in  himself,  351 ;  plus  in- 
finity is  God,  365 ;  can  think  of 
the  universe  only  in  terms  of  his 
own  nature,  377  ;  the  selfish,  gives 
rise  to  a  selfish  God,  381. 

Manfred,  words  of  the  Fifth  Spirit 
in,  9. 

Manhood,  its  essential  mark,  anien- 
ableness  to  moral  judgment,  313. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  198,  233,  316. 

Martineau,  Dr.,  quotation  from, 
about  Maurice,  68 ;  on  the  Son  of 
the  Trinitarian  as  Unitarian  object 
of  worship,  373. 

Mary,  the  worshiper  of  the  dead 
Christ,  309;  the  disciple  of  the 
living  Christ,  310. 

Materialism,  not  fundamental,  135  ; 
the  popular  form  of  atheism,  378. 

Maurice,  F.  IX,  his  mind  creative 
over  the  whole  domain  of  dogmatic 
belief,  68  ;  opinions  about,  68, 69 ; 
lack  of  form,  72,  73;  writings 
show  mind  of  Christ  reproducible 
in  his  disciples,  282. 

Melancthon,  his  vocation  light,  32. 

Melchizedek,  100 ;  a  symbol  for  a 
unitary  God,  367 ;  the  deistic  man 
is  a,  380;  an  infinite,  385. 

Mencius,  63. 

Messianic  prophecies,  280. 

Metaphysics,  science  leads  inevit- 
ably to,  5. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  accounting  for 
the  philosophic  failures  of  Sir 
William  Hamilton,  19;  the  pre- 
eminent genius  of  Jesus,  29, 
opinion  of  Maurice,  70 ;  assertion 
of  the  moral  world  in  his  criticism, 
317 ;  on  the  Trinity,  359. 


INDEX 


395 


Milton,  John,  celestial  thief,  98 ;  his 
Satan  shows  that  "the  mind  ia 
its  own  place,"  234. 

Ministers,  invited  to  teach,  9;  in- 
tellectual life  of,  20;  never  so 
hard  a  time  a»  now  for  educated 
and  honest,  75. 

Missions,  an  expression  of  Chris- 
tianity, 208. 

Moral  beings,  a  world  of,  centred  in 
the  Supreme  moral  being,  107. 

Moral  failures  of  history,  the,  230- 
232. 

Moral  judgment  explained  away, 
150. 

Moral  world,  a,  real,  311  ;  a  discrimi- 
nation between  man  and  nature, 
312 ;  and  between  man  and  the  ani- 
mal, 313. 

Moses,  31 C,  347;  and  the  ninetieth 
psalm,  161 ;  dies  in  the  wilderness, 
227. 

Mother,  the  meaning  of,  to  an  in- 
fant, 103. 

Mutualism,  of  humanity,  166  ;  of 
love  between  God  and  man,  1C8. 

NATURAL  Law,  156 ;  sense  of  ethical 
law  precedes  its  discovery,  157. 

Natural  Selection,  gives  hope  for 
future  health,  238. 

Naturalistic  view  of  life  a  menace, 
186, 187. 

Nature,  full  of  the  mind  of  man, 
155 ;  explained  as  will,  156 ;  is 
both  one  and  a  universe,  159;  and 
science  working  together,  240; 
more  than  consciousness,  283 ; 
reality  of,  298 ;  viewed  as  immoral, 
317  ;  her  friendliness  and  her  un- 
friendliness both  helpful,  324. 

Nausicaa,  sweet  and  stainless  hu- 
manity of,  37. 

Negative  thinkers,  Hume,  Mon- 
taigne, Voltaire,  Huxley,  Mill, 
138. 

Nero,  his  pessimism,  233,  316. 

New  Jerusalem,  a  city  without  a 
hospital,  228. 

Newman,  F.  W..  replies  to  Martin- 
eau's  words  about  Maurice,  68, 72. 

Newman,  J.  H.,  72. 

New  Testament,  the,  a  refuge  from 
doubt,  87 ;  poor  in  comparison 
with  Christ,  229 ;  in  it,  time  and 
eternity  never  definitely  sepa- 
rated, 255;  witness  to  the  in- 
creasing presence  of  Christ  in  the 
consciousness  of  his  disciples, 
281. 

Niagara,  point  of  moral  gain  com- 
pared to,  276. 


Nicene  Creed,  66,  291. 

Nicodemus,  Jesus  inspired  his  criti- 
cism, 261. 

Non-existence  better  than  the  best 
of  life,  233. 

Norse  Ood,  trying  to  drink  the  sea, 
94,95. 

OBLIGATION,  cultivated  evasion  of, 
218. 

Odysseus,  high  domestic  honor  of 
an,  37. 

Old  Testament,  the,  its  local  color- 
ing, 121 ;  ethical  seeds  from,  277  ; 
its  worth,  308 ;  its  dead  portions, 
310. 

Optimism,  founded  on  the  Divine 
intention,  135;  in  history,  212; 
hypothetical,  213;  Grant's,  in- 
spired by  his  being  a  mighty 
fighter,  215 ;  the  valid  mood  for 
viewing  history,  216 ;  sunshine 
for  the  preacher,  218 ;  of  Christ, 
comes  from  inter-dependence  of 
the  individual  and  society,  223; 
the  product  of  the  moralist,  225  ; 
difficulties  in  the  way  of,  225- 
237  ;  its  futility  in  presence  of 
death,  230;  allowance  for  the 
personal  equation  in,  232 ;  of  Mar- 
cus Aurelius,  233 ;  foundations  of, 
237-248 ;  apostles  of,  improve 
sanitary  condition,  239;  science 
advocate  of  Christian,  240;  its 
deepest  foundation  in  faith,  243 ; 
historical  case  rested  on  facts  and 
tendencies,  248;  death  must  be 
transcended  if  it  is  to  live,  249 ; 
scientific,  should  become  philo- 
sophic, 250;  fortune  of  mankind 
on  earth  its  primary  concern,  253 ; 
unethical,  a  calamity,  254. 

Optimist,  the,  bis  supreme  solici- 
tude, 241. 

Optimistic  view  of  human  history, 
difficulties  that  beset  it,  225. 

Order,  in  the  light  of  that  within, 
man  can  note  that  without,  158. 

Organism  and  opportunity,  320, 
321. 

Origen,  great  thinker  and  scholar, 
19,  31,  64 ;  movement  backward 
from  Jesus  Christ  into  the  God- 
head, 66 ;  an  intellect  confronting 
a  real  spiritual  world,  123;  only 
great  theologian  who  teaches  the 
preexistence  of  Jesus,  292;  his 
position  on  incarnation,  293,  295. 

Over-population,  due  to  animalism, 
241,  242. 

PANTHEISM,  not  fundamental,  135. 


396 


INDEX 


Parable,  the  judgment,  178 ;  of  the 
talents,  184 ;  of  the  pounds,  184 ; 
of  the  laborers,  184 ;  political 
economy  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 
185 ;  Dives  and  Lazarus,  206. 

Parables,  the,  appeal  to  the  sense  of 
beauty,  277. 

Paradox,  the  arithmetical,  of  the 
Trinity,  374. 

Park,  Edwards  A.,  82 ;  on  the  Cal- 
vinistic  system,  24. 

Parker,  Theodore,  as  representative 
of  Unitarianism,  373. 

Parmenides,  112. 

Parthenon,  the,  155. 

Patriotism,  increased  by  religion, 
343. 

Paul,  172,  265,  291,  316,  347;  his 
theology  that  of  a  preacher,  29,  30; 
his  use  of  priestly  symbols,  41 ; 
how  his  idea  of  justification  can  be 
realized,  95;  his  searching  criti- 
cism of  love,  260 ;  experience  of, 
286-288  ;  locked  up  by  the  Roman 
centurion,  303. 

Penelope,  invincible  loyalty  of  a, 
37. 

Perfect  man,  the,  such  an  ideal  de- 
mands immortality,  250. 

Perseverance  stands  for  the  opti- 
mism of  the  ancient  creed,  125, 
128. 

Personality,  consciousness  of  moral, 
109  ;  the  individual  ultimate,  133 ; 
its  vindication  in  modern  philoso- 
phy, 138;  subject  opened  by 
Hume's  hunt  for  the  ego,  139 ; 
its  definition  incomplete,  141 ; 
centre  of  contrary  determinations, 
141,  142;  revealed  through  the 
combining  function  of  mind,  143 ; 
attests  itself  through  fact  of  judg- 
ment, 149  ;  reveals  itself  in  force 
of  character,  151 ;  in  society,  161, 
162 ;  of  God,  163 ;  two  aspects  of, 
164;  its  inclusiveness,  166;  the 
assurance  of  immortality,  168  ;  a 
real  capacity  rather  than  a  com- 
pletely developed  consciousness, 
169  ;  the  word  for  reality,  173 ; 
guardian  of  humanity,  199;  the 
edict  of  moral,  199. 

Perverse  man,  the,  246-248. 

Pessimism,  as  the  final  word  in  his- 
tory, 211;  man  born  equidistant 
from  optimism  and,  213 ;  life  of 
Dives  a,  213 ;  the  great  nega- 
tion of  the  preacher's  message, 
218;  fair  play  to,  228;  of  Nero, 
233  ;  secret  in  the  human  will, 
234 ;  radical  analysis  of,  236 ;  one 
fountain  of,  would  run  dry,  with 


transformation  of  environment, 
239 ;  a  blow  in  the  face  of,  240 ; 
goodness  needed  to  expel,  245 ; 
death,  its  chief  support,  249. 

Philebus,the,  its  four  categories,!  15. 

Philosophic  vocation,  to  find  the 
things  of  highest  meaning,  112. 

Philosophy  and  theology,  their  op- 
position, 83,  84 ;  their  similarity, 
85. 

Piety  without  intelligence  a  peril 
to  religion,  257,  258. 

Pilgrim,  Bunyan's,  true  to  Puritan- 
ism, 220. 

Plato,  his  method  of  dealing  with 
the  future  life  in  the  "Phaedo," 
10;  his  great  distinction,  19;  his 
relation  to  philosophy  to-day,  65; 
expansion  and  contraction  of  the 
categories  in  his  hands,  113;  his 
philosophic  poetry,  114;  his 
pointing  to  extreme  wickedness 
as  a  sign  of  vitality  in  the  soul, 
148;  his  vision  of  all  time,  250, 
262;  righteousness  in  the  ideal 
state,  351. 

Platonic  myth,  its  function,  253. 

Preacher,  the  bearings  of  his  voca- 
tion upon  theology,  7,  9-11 ;  his 
vocation  a  stimulus  to  creative  ac- 
tivity, 18  ;  a  discipline  in  things  es- 
sential and  enduring,  22  ;  without 
intellectual  spoils,  secure  against 
diversion  of  power,  24;  his  per- 
spective sounder  than  that  of  the 
scholar,  24-26;  Jesus  Christ  a, 
27;  his  vocation  to  press  the 
faith  to  complete  attestation,  45 ; 
compared  to  a  navigator  in  fitting 
truth  to  life,  48 ;  opportunity  of, 
51 ;  must  believe  in  social  right- 
eousness, 224. 

Predestination,  of  fundamental  im- 
portance, 124,  125;  illogical  de- 
duction from  the  Absolute  will, 
126,  127. 

Privileges,  the  right  of  the  great  ser- 
vant of  the  public,  201,  202. 

Prodigal  Son,  the,  172. 

Progress,  a  great  fact  leading  to 
optimism,  237. 

Prophets,  creators  of  moral  theism, 
27  ;  prior  to  them,  little  sense  of 
personality  in  Israel,  171 ;  once 
supposed  to  have  had  definite  con- 
ceptions of  Jesus,  230. 

Protagorean  nominalism,  177. 

Protective  tariff  in  theology,  84, 
85. 

Psychology,  associational,  150. 

Puritanism,  as  an  overdone  individ- 
ualism, 220. 


INDEX 


397 


Putnam,  Dr.,  tradition  of  the  fann- 
er's view  of  religion  and  theology, 
52. 

Pythagoras,  111. 

RACHEL,  221. 

Realist  and  nominalist,  177. 

Reason,  the  appeal  to,  necessary, 
85;  the  supreme  servant  of  life, 
356. 

Refinement,  constant  note  in  gen- 
uine Christianity,  278. 

Reflection,  gains  upon  instinct,  276. 

Regeneration,  the  reinstatement  of 
the  spiritual  will,  l'J.~>,  128;  its 
meaning  to  the  old  preachers  and 
to  the  new,  223,  224. 

Relations  inconceivable  without  in- 
dividuals, Ml. 

Religion,  definition  of,  54 ;  primary 
and  universal,  55. 

Reuan,  contrasting  himself  with  a 
street  Arab,  252. 

Retribution,  the  doctrine  of,  44. 

Revelation  and  discovery,  the  Chris- 
tian idea  of  God  is  both,  340. 

"  Rider  of  the  Wind,"  9. 

Righteousness,  universal  conflict  be- 
tween iniquity  and,  322. 

Ritsclil,  81. 

Roberts,  Lord,  227. 

SAINTSBURY,  George,  on  Maurice, 
O'J. 

Satan,  Milton's,  234. 

Schleiermacher,  ranked  with  Mau- 
rice, 73. 

Scholar,  the,  must  spend  strength 
as  intellectual  sheriff,  23;  could 
not  foresee  the  issue  of  his  labors 
on  the  Bible,  80 ;  must  have  op- 
portunity, 202. 

Schopenhauer,  Saint,  93 ;  his  phrase, 
"  the  objectiflcation  of  will,"  166 ; 
his  idea  of  will,  232,  234 ;  his  need 
of  an  old-fashioned  conversion, 
237 ;  our  debt  to,  317. 

Science,  dependent  on  the  senses, 
92;  the  bast  way  to  show  grati- 
tude for  its  results,  99 ;  an  ex- 
pression of  man's  personality, 
155;  not  the  first  question,  298, 
299. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  illustration  from 
"  The  Antiquary,"  312. 

Selfhood,  true,  171. 

Self-seeking,  the  blunder  of,  247. 

Sermon  on  the  Mount,  has  the 
beauty  of  truth,  277 ;  supreme 
criticism  on  a  superficial  civiliza- 
tion, 305 ;  its  parable  of  the  build- 
ers, 324. 


Seth,  Prof.  Pringle  -  Pattison,  Ago 
ergo  turn,  151. 

Shaftesbury,  Lord,  used  as  an  illus- 
tration in  "  Literature  and  Dog- 
ma," 359-361. 

Shakespere,  significant,  111,  262; 
his  work  independent  of  his  per- 
sonal history,  307. 

Simonides,  333. 

Sinai,  and  Mount  Zion,  316. 

Sistiue  Madonna,  the,  259. 

Social  conception  of  God,  292. 

Social  distinctions,  legitimate  only 
when  not  exclusive,  200. 

Social  exclusiveness,  broken  down 
by  Christian  life,  205. 

Social  hope,  always  best  sign  of  in- 
dividual renewal,  220. 

Social  regeneration  the  message  of 
the  prophets,  222. 

Socrates,  sincere  in  confession  of 
ignorance,  112;  his  exposure  of 
pretense,  113. 

Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  history 
viewed  as  a  colossal,  211. 

Solidarity,  the,  of  the  race,  funda- 
mental truth,  255. 

Sophoclean  view  of  existence,  233. 

Specialization  of  mankind  demand- 
ed, 183. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  first  scientist 
and  then  philosopher,  5. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  chivalry  in  his 
"  Faerie  Queene,"  41. 

Spinoza,  152. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  on   Maurice   and 

Green.  69. 

Stewardship,  the  Christian  idea  of, 
201. 

Stoic,  ethics  of  permanent  value; 
physics  valueless,  157. 

Stoicism,  278. 

Superstition,  why  better  than  un- 
belief, 336. 

Survival  of  the  fittest,  190, 192 ;  su- 
preme protest  against  it  in  the 
Gospel,  207. 

Swift,  Jonathan,  quotes  Job  on  his 
birthdays,  233. 

Sympathy,  the  best  path  to  truth, 
259. 

Syrophcenician  mother,  the,  260. 

TARTANS,  of  Scottish  clans,  like 
badges  of  social  exclusiveness,  206. 

Tauler,  282. 

Taylor,  Nathaniel,  123. 

Temptation,  the,  greater  than  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  151 ;  over- 
come, life's  increasing  achieve- 
ment, 207. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,   his  opinion   of 


398 


INDEX 


Maurice,  71 ;  first  to  apply  poetic 
insight  to  evolution,  77  ;  abysmal 
depths  of  personality,  141. 

Tertullian,  64. 

Thales  fixes  on  water  as  chief  thing 
in  nature,  111. 

Theism,  Christian,  the  church 
founded  on,  290;  discussion  of, 
381-384. 

Theologia  sacra,  14. 

Theologian,  the  Christian,  4 ;  voca- 
tion of  the  professional,  indispen- 
sable, 7;  his  opportunity  as  a 
teacher,  8 ;  his  share  in  the  spiritual 
life  of  mankind,  15;  author  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel  not  a,  30;  the 
heart  makes  the,  9,3;  work  of  the, 
to  lift  Christian  life  into  an  or- 
derly world  of  meanings,  97. 

Theologians,  professional  and  non- 
professional,  4;  of  Scotland  and 
New  England,  32, 33  ;  of  the  early 
centuries  still  an  enriching  study, 
66. 

Theological  student,  typical  experi- 
ence of  a,  82. 

Theology,  Greek  equivalent  of  the 
word,  3;  inseparable  from  the 
calling  of  a  preacher,  5 ;  a  trust 
in  the  hands  of  professionals,  9; 
the  work  of  the  few  for  the  many, 
11 ;  once  %  matter  of  text-build- 
ing, 14;  generative  source  of,  in 
contemporaneous  religious  life, 
17,  59 ;  of  the  Old  Testament,  27; 
Paul's,  that  of  an  educated  mind, 
30 ;  valuable,  but  not  essential, 
54  ;  intellect  in  the  service  of  the 
heart,  57  ;  experiential  basis  of, 
58-60 ;  historical  beginning  of,  62; 
a  new  day  in,  74;  promise  of  a, 
75;  without  God,  92;  sources  of, 
93-95 ;  method  of,  95 ;  task  of,  97, 
132;  helps  to,  98,  99;  historic, 
122, 123 ;  its  relation  to  reality, 
132 ;  must  cast  out  demon  of  sys- 
tem, 133 ;  a  necessity  of  the  re- 
ligious intellect,  129 ;  a  new,  es- 
sential to  set  forth  new  values 
discovered,  130 ;  a  self -renewing 
order  of  less  inadequate  apprecia- 
tions, 131 ;  Christian,  holds 
achievements  of  science,  204 ;  and 
conduct,  ultimately  amenable  to 
the  life  of  Christ,  284 ;  secondary 
and  primary  issues  in,  297 ;  the 
hope  of,  302 ;  a  true,  rises  out  of 
Christology,  384. 

TheophiluB,  63. 

Trinitarian  conception  of  God  has 
passed  into  the  Unitarian,  373. 

Trinity,  the,  292 ;  as  a  Social  Deity, 


357  ;  ridicule  thrown  on  the  con- 
ception of  the,  359 ;  treated  as  a 
myth,  361 ;  Dr.  Ward's  view,  362; 
origin  of  the  doctrine  of,  363 ;  the 
truth  behind  the  doctrine  of,  364; 
full  statement  of  the  truth  at 
which  Greek  mythology  aimed, 
371 ;  a  mystery  that  saves  the 
reality  of  God,  374 ;  the  doctrine 
grew  out  of  the  problem  of  Christ, 
384;  reached  through  humanity, 
385. 
Truth  not  truth  if  stationary,  91. 

ULTIMATE,  the  individual,  133 ;  the 
social,  the  religious,  the  Absolute, 
134. 

Unification,  a  conscious  function 
146,  149. 

Unitarians,  have  absorbed  the  essen- 
tial theology  of  the  Trinitarians, 
378. 

Unitary  God,  the,  367 ;  without  love, 
380 ;  symbol  of  misery,  383. 

United  States,  the,  analogous  to  the 
human  mind,  153 ;  bounded,  221 ; 
wages  of  its  founders,  labor  and 
sorrow,  226. 

Universalism,  intentional,  not  in 
fact,  136. 

Universals,  best  seen  through  par- 
ticulars, 307. 

Universe,  the  moral,  a  fundamental 
question,  310, 318  ;  given  in  moral 
experience,  320;  its  sympathetic 
reality,  322;  its  battle  man's 
moral  battle,  324 ;  the  moral  hero 
its  expression,  327  ;  mystery  of  it 
compared  to  the  earth  covered  by 
the  flood,  331 ;  and  mind,  action 
and  reaction  of,  338;  the  material, 
takes  its  character  from  human 
receptivity,  368 ;  the  unitary  God 
left  without  a,  369. 

VANITY  of  existence,  236. 

WALLACE,  Alfred  Russel,  service  in 
explaining  evolution,  77. 

Watershed  of  belief  and  unbelief, 
347. 

Weak,  the,  their  comfort  the  edu- 
cative purpose  of  God,  245;  a 
warrantable  joy  for  them,  246. 

Weakness,  of  infancy,  246. 

Wealth,  basis  of  human  right  to, 
202. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  glad  of  relief 
at  Waterloo,  205. 

Wendt,  "  grand  inner  unity  "  of  the 
teaching  of  Jesus,  28. 

Will,  in  the  Augustinian  categories, 


INDEX 


399 


124-126 ;  an  aspect  of  human  life, 
159;  ita  transformation,  232;  its 
relation  to  force,  369. 

Wordsworth,  William,  quoted,  269. 

Work,  a  moral  necessity,  241,  242. 

World,  the  practical  and  the  theo- 


retic, 56  ;  a  convalescent  patient, 
237 ;  pre-temporal,  293. 
Worthless,  the,  why  conserved,  245. 

XJWOPHANKS,  quoted,  376. 
ZWLNGLI,  a  man  of  action,  32. 


Cbr 

Eltctrotyped  and  printed  by  ff.  O.  Hougkton  <5r-  CV>. 
Cambridge,  Mast.,  U.S.  A. 


THE  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
Santa  Barbara 


STACK  COLLECTION 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


30m-8>165(F6447s4)9482 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  L 


A     000  995  202     9 


